Quest for Water
by Writless
Summary: Enslaved by raiders who destroyed her life, a woman with a gift struggles to find reasons to live. Survival is key to another, no matter how much he has to learn to hate himself to accomplish it. A hopefully engrossing tale of life in the wastes.
1. Chapter 1

***Edited first two chapters with the help of North American Scum. You are an awesome critique-er! Thank you so much!***

Cale was a small town. Once, before the war, it had probably been a substantial suburb. What was left of the buildings consisted of two homes and a large concrete post office separated by what remained of the asphalt street, all the rest was mostly rubble. A couple families scraped together a living there, some worked as scavengers and traded with the merchants who wandered the wastelands others had rounded up a small herd of Brahmin to supply the people with meat and milk and lived their lives as farmers.

Anya lived there with her uncle, Phil. Her parents had long since died of radiation poisoning like many in the wastes. Phil looked much like Anya herself, he often told her how much she reminded him of her mother. They both had the sandy blonde hair and odd gray eyes, and so they passed as father and daughter to anyone who bothered to wonder.

They had nearly died in the wastes themselves before they stumbled upon the small community of Cale, three months of scraping together a living had passed before Phil realized that he just wasn't much of a hunter and if they were both going to make it, they needed to find some small bit of civilization if they were to have any chance at all. Cale had a busted water purifier, Phil had been an excellent mechanic and had a hungry little girl with him. The people there had half grudgingly agreed that they could stay.

They earned their way by repairing what they could, but mostly it was by putting the junk that the scavengers brought back together into something useful. Anya had started out bringing Phil tools but had quickly progressed to helping him with small tasks until she became quite competent as a mechanic herself. They settled into their new life and lived quite comfortably through Anya's childhood. She didn't make many friends, but then there weren't many children around. She enjoyed her time with Phil and they made a happy family for a while. The raiders had come when she was sixteen.

They had struck at night; she woke with a jolt to the shrill scream that pierced the otherwise quiet evening. She searched in vain for the one shotgun that they themselves owned but couldn't find it in her haste, maybe Phil had already taken it outside because he wasn't in the room either. Smoke began to pour in through their boarded window, her eyes immediately began to water and any attempt to breathe too deeply resulted in hacking coughs. She pulled her shirt over her nose and crawled across the floor, blinking the tears out of her eyes. She could hear shouting outside and almost see the orange flicker of fire dancing between the boards. She crawled to the only other bedroom in the one story home searching for the family that they lived with.

"Mrs. Henderson?" She whispered into the darkness, her eyes were slowly adjusting to the dim room but the smoke was making normal vision impossible. She heard coughing near the far wall, the twin boys were both sitting in the corner hugging each other, not quite half her age they locked on to her with desperate need.

"Where's mommy?" One of them asked with a trembling chin, she could see the tears that were threatening to spill over had little to do with the smoke. No one else seemed to be in the room, she knew their father was out on watch but had no idea where their mother had gone.

"Come on guys," She managed to speak through choked breaths and pushed them toward the door. "Stay low and keep your shirt over your nose." She followed them both out to the living room; the flames flickered outside the windows, casting jumping shadows across the room. Her heart hammered in her throat as she tried to convince herself that everything would be okay if she just stayed in control.

The terror continued to pump through her veins and settled unpleasantly in her stomach as she saw that some of the boards had begun to burn. They had reached the front of the house and she couldn't hear anything besides the crackling of the fire and the groaning of the building around her. She stood to try and peek through the windows but she couldn't see anything beyond the flames, they would just have to risk it, staying in the burning house meant death for certain.

As she reached gingerly toward the door a hand snatched her wrist and pulled her away from the door, she tried to scream but the smoke limited her to choking coughs until she recognized Gabriel crouching near the wall.

"Raiders." He whispered and motioned for her to keep quiet, he pulled her over to the larger bay window where he had been hidden. She crouched down next to him; a missing board in the window splayed a beam of orange light onto Gabriel's stern looking face. "We'll have to leave out back."

She nodded quickly, relieved to have someone else in charge. Gabriel was one of the scavengers who spent most of his time in the wastes, she knew him well through her uncle, he always managed bring in excellent finds. Phil was always surprised by his knack for returning alive, he couldn't have been more than eighteen. As they were making their way to the back of the house they heard gunshots and another scream outside, she had to cover her mouth to keep from crying out.

Phil was out there, Mrs. Henderson might even be out there. She turned to shush the twins and encouraged them to follow Gabriel's lead. The relief of finding Gabriel drained away and was replaced with the stomach churning fear that everyone outside was dead or dying. Her throat was itching and she ached to cough the soot out but panic kept her throat locked tight, she tried to take shallow breaths and brought her shirt sleeve up over her mouth.

The house started to creak and groan more earnestly, flames chewed through the boards and slipped inside through the windows to start climbing up the walls. Still she hesitated when they reached the back door; the terror inside the building was suddenly nothing to what she imagined was happening outside. Gabriel stood in front of the door, a baseball bat clutched in his hands. He gave her a quick nod and pulled open the door. He stepped out into the night and surveyed the area before he returned to the door frame and waved them forward with an all clear. They stumbled out into the night, the boys blinking in the firelight; she immediately sucked in a lungful of the cool clean air. She fell to the ground and coughed violently into her arms, careful to muffle the sound. The black smoke that had been gathering in the house billowed out into the night air, joining the hazy cloud that reached up into the sky and blocked the full light of the moon.

"What do we do?" She asked Gabriel in a trembling voice, she hated that she sounded like such a child even to herself; she was supposed to be a grown woman, a strong asset to the community. But fear and blind panic were plain on her face and now shameful tears started to well up in her eyes. Cries echoed from beyond the house and the roof was a riot of flames, bathing everything in a yellowish-orange glaze. She could see the boys were both crying now, tears streaked down their sooty cheeks were clear even in the dim light. She didn't know what, if anything, they understood to be going on. She didn't want to be the one to explain. Gabriel looked down at them miserably; he looked as though he was faced with a burden he wasn't quite ready to deal with.

"I think we have to go." He didn't sound like he wanted to run, his tone sounded like he wanted to go fight them. But even though he was young, he wasn't stupid, the Wastes took care of that kind of stupid quickly. He knew what would happen to her and the boys if he were to lose. "I think we have to go right now."

She nodded, determined to keep her calm, the twins had both dropped to their rears, tears and snot flowing freely. They didn't look to have understood what Gabriel was saying. She was grateful for that small blessing. They would come back after the worst of it, she promised herself. After the raiders had taken what they wanted and destroyed her home they would come back for the others, they would rebuild what they could. Phil would be waiting for them, maybe wounded but otherwise fine. She told those lies to herself so she could tell them to the boys. She pulled up on their arms lifting them to their feet.

"Come on kiddos." She tried to sound brave, she wiped away at their cheeks with her sleeve. "We've got to get out of here. Your mommy and daddy said we should meet them later." She brushed the tears away from their face. "We've got to be brave, and we've got to be quiet okay?" They nodded and she gave them a strained smile. She didn't know how much safer they'd be out in the wilderness without anything to their name, but she didn't want to stick around and find out. Gabriel jumped down into the dried creek bed behind the house already on his way. She turned back to usher the boys to follow when a shadow stepped forward from the edge of the building, the flames cast his frame over the boys, his face was just visible in the glowing light; he didn't look friendly.

"Hello lovey." He grinned unpleasantly, many of his teeth were missing and the ones that were left were a grimy yellow. She leapt back a few steps in her panic, forgetting the twins completely, she fell into another man who had snuck up beside her from the opposite side of the house. He gripped her around the chest, trapping her arms at her side.

"Found us some slaves, 'ave we?" The man breathed into her ear, she shuddered and instincts kicked in. She started to scream and thrash in his arms trying to bash her head into his face. But he was much stronger than she was and he just laughed at her struggles. Gabriel appeared out of the corner of her eye and yelled as he swung with his bat. She heard and felt the bat connect midway down the man's back, his arms instantly went limp and he crumpled to the ground. She nearly fell herself as his thick arms dragged along her sides. She heard one of the boys scream shrilly and she found the first man had approached the boys and was pulling their hair teasingly. She flung herself at him then, the boys barely stumbling out of the way, she was determined to save them instead of being a coward.

She swung as hard as she could and hit him in the face with her fist, crying out as she felt pain explode in her hand from the strike. His head turned a little with the impact but his nasty grin suggested she didn't have much of an impression on him. He swung back with his arm and backhanded her so hard she spun half around before dropping face first into the ground. She tried to make sense of anything but her face and whole head pulsed in starbursts of pain, her vision spun with darkness as she tried to focus on anything but the dirt she was pressed against. Her fingers clenched and unclenched in the dirt feebly, she managed to slide her face to the side so she didn't feel like screaming any more.

She watched as Gabriel leapt over her fallen form and charged at the man with his bat high above his head, the man watched too with a smug sneer plastered across his ugly face. Something was wrong. A crack startled her, Gabriel seemed to stop his charge mid step. His momentum carried him forward a little further but the bat dropped from his hands. In slow motion he fell to the ground he landed with a heavy thud on his stomach.

Several heartbeats passed where she didn't understand what had happened, her mind started to clear as the man gave a snort and walked past the both of them. With great effort she pushed herself up to her knees and could see where Gabriel lay unmoving. A small bloom of color pierced through Gabriel's shirt at his shoulder and a stain slowly spread out from his back, as she crawled toward him she could smell the tang of copper in the air.

"Gabriel!" She shrieked, crawling to his side. "Gabriel get up!"Her whole face felt like it was on fire but it was a passing thought, she screamed hysterically at him, he wasn't moving. The boys stood nearby, their choked sobs barely noticeable over her screaming. She shook his shoulder as roughly as she could, panic surging up in her all at once. The red stain smeared on her hands and clothes, the smell of the blood was thick and choking despite the smoke. She tore a strip from his shirt and mashed it against Gabriel's wound to try and stop the bleeding, she struggled to get him to roll over so that the bandage might be pinned. Blood had pooled beneath his chest and she sobbed helplessly as she saw the bullet had gone clean through him. She continued to scream his name in the vain hope that sheer volume would cause him to awaken. Her fingers pressed against his chest now, the blood seemed to slow but didn't stop. She patted his face and shook his chin, her bloody finger prints smeared across his skin, but he didn't stir.

"Cutting it close there, Mal." The yellow tooth man nodded back over his shoulder. She turned to see the man who still held the pistol approaching from where he had been hiding and flashed a sheepish grin. His face was thin and unfriendly looking, he winked at Anya.

Mal walked foward until he reached the other raider who had fallen to Gabriel's bat. The man groaned and rolled his head but the rest of his body didn't move from the awkward position he had fallen in. Mal kicked the raider in the back of his skull with a chuckle; the man cried out but was unable to do anything. He spat on the ground near his face and sneered.

"Told you this greenie was worthless. Leave him for the mole rats." He looked over to where Anya was kneeling next to Gabriel and let out a low whistle. "She'll catch us a price, eh Pete?" He marched over to her and pulled her face up with a handful of straw colored hair before she could react. She screamed, the assault brought all the pains in her face sharply into focus. She wept uncontrollably but refused to look the man in the eye.

Pete slapped Mal's hands away from the girl. She collapsed back into a kneeling position, clutching the right side of her face. Gabriel lay forgotten to her side, her searing pain and fear the only thing she knew. "She'll fetch _me_ a price Mal. If you hadn't a killed so many folk out front, I mighta been more generous with your share." Mal stared daggers at Pete but he seemed unimpressed. She shuddered to herself watching them both, the man called Mal looked as though he wanted to kill and keep on killing.

"Tie em up." Pete threw a length of rope at Mal's feet and walked away. Mal grunted and grabbed the rope. "Get the brats too; they'll fetch a nice price from the scav's." He nodded toward the wide eyed boys who sat trembling and silent.

"What'd the hell they want kids for? Damn pain in the ass." Mal glowered at the boys and snapped the ropes at them threateningly; Anya cried that she could do nothing to protect them, she cried harder because there was no one to protect her.

"Mutie bait." Pete smiled in a sickly manner, he disappeared around the side of the house leaving them alone. Mal looped leads around the boys necks and tied them together. He was snickering to himself at the idea of children as bait as he approached her.

"Time to get up." He wretched her arms up, her face was still a throbbing ache but nothing compared to the misery she expected to come. He wrenched her arms behind her back and roped them together painfully tight. He tied a lead around her neck as well, connecting it to her arms so that any movement on their part would result in choking herself. A wretched cry choked up in her throat as she watched him tie the boys to the end of the rope behind her.

"Get moving bitch," He smacked her salaciously in the rear to shut her up. "You've got a long walk yet." She flinched and fresh tears spilled over her cheeks, her legs felt weak as noodles but they marched forward. Mal cackled wildly at her apparent agony. She stole one last glance toward Gabriel's still form and stepped forward into her own private hell.


	2. Chapter 2

Anya stumbled over the broken landscape, shards of rock grated against her bare feet, she left a crimson streak behind her when she forgot to lift her leg high enough. Her arms drifted in front of her, attempting to keep her upright, she couldn't stop. Somewhere in her mind she knew if she fell she wouldn't be able to get up again, there was also the knowledge that if she fell they would beat her until she passed out. These thoughts were in the far recesses of her mind though, what really concerned her was water. She couldn't describe how she could sense where it was, she just felt the pull somewhere deep in her gut. It was why they hadn't sold her off to slavers yet, it was also why they hadn't outright killed her yet, sometimes she wasn't sure if she should be grateful or not, other times she let the high of Jet and booze do her thinking for her.

They had been just short of Paradise Falls when they had discovered her gift. They were crossing miles of desert, nothing but a crusty dirt caked surface and the sun beating down overhead. The men had rationed the fresh water amongst themselves, they dispensed the radiated crap that they pulled out of the ground to the captives. She had fallen to her knees and retched what little was in her stomach out onto the burning rock. She had felt the insistent tug then and been too weak to resist it, she crawled and stumbled away from the path the raiders were taking, they were too miserable themselves to take immediate notice of the straying pack.

The boys marched like zombies behind her, shock and malnutrition had rendered them both oblivious to their situation. She had crested one small arching dune before they had caught her, Mal had come up behind her shoving his boot into her back cruelly. She dropped to the scorching sand but still tried to squirm forward, the drive behind more powerful than she could control.

"Time to put you down, bitch." He had set the barrel of his shot gun at the base of her neck. Pete had come up behind them then, his voice quiet with awe.

"Mal. Look at what she fucking found." In the distance he had finally seen it, the flicker of water. What made it special was the greenery surrounding it. Not much, a few weeds and some crab grass, but it was alive. The water was fresh. "She's a Dowser." Pete had slapped Mal on the back and laughed, the only time she had seen him smile that wasn't malicious. "We're going to be rich."

She had heard the shot then, the shockwave powerful and deep. For a moment she thought she had gone deaf, she thought too that the shot had been into her skull and she was mercifully free of these monsters.

Pete's body flopped down to the ground next to her, his face awash in shock for a moment until his eyes slowly glazed over. She smelled gunpowder then, tears sprung to her eyes and she began to shake. Mal hoisted her back up to her feet before the blood that oozed from Pete's gut could reach her. "No Pete, I'm going to be rich."

What she had remembered clearly from the incident was how cold Mal had been, how frightened she had been when she looked in his eyes and saw nothing human in them. How frightened she would still be if she could stay sober in their midst.

After the boys had been sold off she had refused to help them, she led them across miles and miles of land aimlessly, intentionally walking away from where she thought water might be. Despite her own desperate need for water she thought maybe the world would be a better place if these men were to die along with her. She had earned several beatings for it, sometimes so bad that they had to lash her to a Brahmin until she could walk again. They murdered and pillaged in the mean time to make a living.

They had discovered the power of Jet when a few of the men had thought to grapple with her after a particularly uneventful search, she screamed and scratched at them, bit whatever she could, she didn't have much strength but she poured all of it into fighting them off. They came at her with the Jet then. It was an almost immediate effect, she became more compliant, compliant like a twitching corpse. This pleased the men greatly. When they finally crawled off her to have some sleep she had stumbled to her feet unthinking and wandered out into the darkness. They had found her the next morning crumpled next to an old concrete well, her fingers cracked and bleeding from trying to pry up the lid.

They had figured out how to make their new toy work.

The memories jumbled together in her mind, the smell of the house burning, what tears and soot mixed together tasted like, the image of Pete's eyes fading into death. It was all just information that bubbled up to the top, only to spill over the edges of her drug induced stupor.

Somewhat back in the present she crested the rubble pile she had been marching toward. She had to dig in with her hands to triumph over the steep embankment, more pains that registered only faintly. She saw the sparkle of sunlight off water down at the bottom of the hill, she paused only a moment before she started to walk down the hill. Her knees buckled as she picked up speed and she slid most of the way down on her side.

She lay still panting when Mel finally caught up, he nudged her with a boot. They were nicer boots now, real Brahmin leather, his clothes also looked like they had been washed more than once. She had made him a very rich man. He smiled his sick grin and clapped his hands together.

"Boys, I think I've hit retirement." His gaze molested the greenery before him, he hadn't quite seen anything like it, he couldn't even remember seeing anything like this from pictures before the war. There were living trees here, real live trees, they were the small and stunted but they were alive. It was at least an acre, mountains rose up on either side, hiding the discovery to those in the distance.

The drugs shuddered through her system violently as she listened to him gloat on in an echoey voice near the back of her mind. The men swarmed in around and gave great whooping cheers as they finished the march to the waterhole. One of the men stooped to hoist her over his shoulder and her head spun as blood rushed up to her face. Seven years, she thought to herself in a moment of unhappy clarity, seven years should be enough time. When do I get to die?

* * *

Two days had passed before Gabriel could gather the strength to move at all, his flesh was raw from the sun, he could feel the heat radiating from his skin, he could feel how it wanted to crack into great bleeding chasms. It took him several hours to lift himself to a sitting position without collapsing back to the ground. He slid himself slowly to the shade of what was left of the home the raiders had burned. He slid weakly against the wall and tried to stay awake, but the effort to move this far had burned most of his reserves. He tried to muster up the energy to be grateful that a mole rat hadn't found him and made an easy meal of him yet, but it was hard to see the silver lining when his whole body throbbed in violent pain with his heartbeat and he didn't have the strength to stand. He passed out again to the thought of never waking.

When the world came into focus again it was to voices, shuffling of metal, and a low croon of a Brahmin.

Traders had come to investigate, the smoke had probably been visible for miles. They weren't the usual folk who came through town, those folks were probably wary enough to know that it was over for the settlement of Cale. Safer to move on than to investigate and fall victim to raiders themselves. But these men were professionals, probably raiders when the mood struck them, but traders for all purposes when they showed their faces in the larger, more governed settlements.

"Water…" He had croaked out, his fingers scrabbling at the dirt when one of them had found him. The man eyed him with a sneer and disappeared back behind the building, he came back with the rest of the crew. He heard them talk about the positives and the negatives of nursing him to health, there was no empathy with these men, only which decision would pay off the best. They had decided to let him live, the bullet had passed clean through him, aside from the severe blood loss he didn't seem to suffer any serious damage. The men hadn't babied him either, he had been put to work immediately, one armed or no.

He was little more than a slave to them, he did what they said and he received enough rations to live off of. It hadn't been to bad to start with, he had been an errand boy, cleaning, fixing, slinking into locations they thought weren't safe enough to traipse into themselves. It had gotten progressively worse though, they had given him a weapon and expected him to participate when they bullied honest people into coughing up more caps than they thought was fair. When they thought people weren't worth bargaining with they would just eliminate them and dig through the wreckage. Gabriel had been a part of that too. Unwillingly at first, the threat of being left in the deserted wasteland with nothing was a serious cause for concern. But soon even that wasn't enough to convince him it was the right thing to do. Some of the people they picked off just because they were weak enough to be easy targets. The things he told himself to be able to sleep at night were just lies, eventually he stopped trying to convince himself. These men were monsters, they had turned him into one of them; but the worst part was that he had let them.

He stayed up late one night after a particularly successful scaving party, booze was the primary boon. The men had enjoyed the fruits of their labor heavily that night, Gabriel had laughed along with them, nursing his bottle of whiskey while the rest of the men polished off several. Bryson, the man who was as much of a leader as any of them would willingly allow had stayed up sharing drunken stories with Gabriel late after everyone had passed out. Stories of conquests that made Gabriel sick to his stomach, the whiskey sloshed in his veins warming his skin, he found himself smiling and laughing along with the stories.

"Gabe." Bryson looked to the young man, the drunk man smiled crookedly; it didn't look cheery, just sinister. "Y'aint half bad." His words slurred as he slumped to the ground and grinned up at the sky. Gabriel rose then, the cool metal of a hunting knife tucked against his arm, he could feel himself shaking, he didn't know if it was nerves or rage. He knelt next to the man and plunged the knife into his throat, he didn't have time to cry out, he only made a small gurgling noise as he choked to death on his own blood.

It was easy after that, slitting each and every one of their throats cleanly and professionally, half of them didn't even stir from their stupor. He felt like a great weight came off of his shoulders, he let a half chuckle slip from his lips. The camp smelled like death and was now eerily silent from the low drunken snores that had filled the night only minutes before.

He stripped them of everything they were worth and piled the bodies to rot in the sun, it was the only dignity he thought they deserved. He took the product in to the next settlement he came across and sold everything he could. He kept the best set of armor and a good set of rations to keep him for a while, he also kept the knife he had killed them with, it suddenly felt sentimental to him. He scavenged parts from some of their crummier weaponry and purchased some better quality pieces. He would do his own bullying now, not because some useless thug told him to.

He wasn't afraid of what he had become any more, he had survived, and that was all that really mattered in the wastes.


	3. Chapter 3

Vertville shimmered in the distance, sparkling at him like a diamond in the side of the cliffs. The effect of the hubcaps and chrome bumpers was always impressive at this distance, most people were disappointed when they came closer and found it was piles and piles of mostly rusted old cars. It had been an old scrap yard back before the war, mostly vehicles that had come there to die. They were all stacked high in long rows, neat little aisles between each, just large enough for a man to fit through.

The first wastelanders to come across it found that there was a sizable gap between the first set of cars and the cliff walls. Enough of a gap to set up meager shelters and somewhere easily defensible. More people had come and eventually the meager shelters became more sophisticated, more permanent. When they finally got around to deciding that this was a place they wanted to call home permanently they went to action.

It took several years, and many men to move the cars around. They were already crushed pretty compact so once they were taken down it was just a matter of deciding where exactly they wanted the wall placed. They decided to make a half moon against the base of the cliffs the cars were stacked more than three times as high as any man stood. The town grew quite sizably for a while, the space became packed with buildings and people, the walkways had to be raised so that people could still get around efficiently. They soon discovered that they would need more room, they had started to consider the schematics of increasing the size of their wall when they discovered that the cliffs behind them were soft enough to be carved into, but sturdy enough to hold strong.

It had been slow going at first, chipping away at the stone with crowbars and axes, but when they had discovered the power of a jack hammer things had gone much smoother. They created a sequence of caves along the ground level, and then they had thought to go higher up, more caves, more rooms. Their carving became more sophisticated as they went, carving windows that looked over the wastes, tables out of the stone. People began to move up there by choice, not so much necessity.

Eventually the caves became the residential area, and the 'flats' or the original part of town became strictly traders and local stores. Buildings were cleared out of that area to create a more open place, travelers were welcomed in, just so long as they handed over their weapons. That had all happened long before Fisher had come across it, but it was part of the town history and it was shared often over late night drinking with friends.

Fisher pulled his wagon along, a couple young molerats weighing it down. He did some of the hunting still for Heather back at the café, he wasn't young, but he refused to consider himself old yet. The old pain in his thigh still bothered him with each step, he told himself he just needed to warm it up was all, he'd been telling himself that for 20 years now. Molerat wasn't the best, but it was meat, and it was locally found. Anything more than half a day travel from town Fisher just bought from the traders who came by fairly regularly, being a merchant himself he was effective at getting himself a deal.

He hooked up the wagon to his shoulder straps and hoisted it along the path on his way home, it didn't take him longer than an hour or two to get there. It always seemed deceptively close on the flat plain that made up most of the surrounding area, the only change of pace was the butte that he called home. He had climbed up to the top once, in younger more foolish days, it was a difficult way up, he had nearly fallen several times when he finally reached the top the view had floored him. He had decided that this was the place he would settle, no more vagabonding and stealing, he would become an honest man in this town.

That had been a long time ago, he sighed at the memory and squinted up at the top of the cliffs, he had promised himself he would go back one day, but never had. Responsibilities had a way of sneaking up on a man. He waited at the front gates for the bridge to come down, they had built themselves a moat with shards of rusted metal and glass to greet whoever might fall in. It groaned as it was cranked down on cables to meet the ground.

"Heya Fish!" One of the men at the controls called over while he worked. Fisher had lived in Vertville a long time now, had seen many of the inhabitants age from young kids to grown folk. It was a comforting thought in a world that had seen so much gone wrong. He nodded his greeting and pulled his cart across the bridge and down the main drag to one of the sturdier looking buildings near the end. 'Chevy Café and Supplies" was painted across the front of the building in meticulous and bold red letters. Fisher had been a scrapper and a scavenger for a long while before he came here, and found he couldn't quite stop himself when it was time to settle down. So he had satisfied himself with searching for car emblems in the expansive junkyard that still surrounded much of the town. He had found mostly chevy, and had polished up the ones that could be convinced and started to plaster the walls with them. The whole inside of the café looked as though it were some kind of crazy memorial. He wheeled the wagon around the backside of the building where there was a larger sliding door that he managed to wheel the cart through. Closing the door behind him he was startled by a cheerful voice.

"Thought that was you I heard. How was the pickings?" Heather grinned in her open way, her hands stuffed in her overalls and kitchen grease smeared over her forehead where she had tried to brush some of her auburn hair away from her face.

"Molerat and more molerat. I'm not really surprised though, so pretty good. We have any customers?" He asked her as he worked on hauling one of the monsters over to the hooks where he hung them for butchering.

"Yep, coming just as regular as no rain. Haven't seen Gabe yet though, weren't you expecting him?"

Fisher smiled a little inwardly, the girl was as subtle as a brick. "Soon I'm sure. Are you letting them steal my goods while you're back here yakking?" He gave her a sharp look but it was meant in good fun.

"Alright, alright. You want anything cooked up since I'll be slaving away anyway?" She put the back of her hand up against her head as though she were preparing to faint but she still had the silly grin on her face.

"No, that's alright." He smiled. "Go on now, I've got some gutting to do."


	4. Chapter 4

Hello hello! I just wanted to make myself known, I hope to keep this updated regularly, I'm kind of flighty so that could be too much of a stretch. Preemptive apologies if that's the case. Anyway, I just wanted to ask if any of the wonderful readers that are out there could take it upon themselves to try an critique my writing. I've noticed I've got a real issue with being adverb happy and repeating words. But I can't catch them all! Of course, anything you notice would also be appreciated critique. It helps if you tell me how awesome I am, but it's not something I'm going to require. Thanks a bunch!

She stood there awkwardly with bloodied knees and skinned palms, they had almost stopped bleeding but she still looked like carnage unleashed. She could feel the trembling of withdrawal, the Jet was wearing off, it didn't matter though, she had almost mastered the art of numbing her brain while sober. She did feel a pinch of regret that they had found people here among the oasis, some of them had offered her water when she had fallen onto their trail, offered it like it was nothing to them. She was too exhausted to accept, too exhausted to warn them of Mal. Her lips had started to form the words but there was no voice behind them.

He had shot one of them square in the face, he dropped like an axed tree and spilled blood into the sand. The other guard had been a woman, Mal didn't like to waste women, so she had just been raped and beaten by the men as a reward for their find. She sat nearby Anya now, with a vacant look on her face and blood dribbling from her nose and mouth, a purple bruise starting to form around her left eye. Anya had no words of comfort for her, it was only going to get worse. The other guard had probably been lucky, hell, the other one had been lucky. Swift death on bullet wings was something she dreamed of sometimes.

"Oy!" One of the men shouted for her startling her out of her vacancy. He was short, pot bellied and smelled like rotten eggs at all times. His greasy beard matched his greasy balding head, but he looked almost nervous now. "Get over 'ere!"

She felt her feet move of their own volition, she hadn't really wanted to follow orders, but somewhere in her jumbled mind she didn't want to end the day covered in bruises either. Death was a brave thing to wish for, but it would take actual courage to make it happen, courage Anya doubted she had.

"Go check for people down there. Looks like it's a water cave or something." He nudged her along. "You're the water witch, you'll be alright." He grinned as if he were doing her a favor. It looked like it had been a sink hole at one point, but now it had filled almost completely with water. There was the slightest glow, a point of light that suggested that maybe there was a hole in the back somewhere. Vines and roots dangled from the ceiling and drifted in the water. It would be easy to drown in a place like this, she almost smiled as she walked deeper and deeper into the water until it was up to her nose. The water burned her open wounds but it felt nice to be fully submerged in water, she had baths before, but they were usually lots of scrubbing and less water involved. She started to float a little, she could feel herself bob every so slightly up to the surface, she couldn't hold her feet flat to the ground.

It occurred to her that she didn't know how she was supposed to get herself deeper and toward the light. She knew the term, she had read it in a book about Olympic swimmers that one of the traders had brought into town. Phil had helped her read it and explained the pictures. He hadn't known how to swim either, but he had a pretty wide knowledge base of things that had happened before the war. It sounded like he knew what he was saying. She hadn't thought about Phil in a long time and she found it still hurt just as badly as the fresh wounds in her knees.

She took a deep breath and tried to push herself under the surface with her hands flapping wildly at the water. She opened her eyes to the murky world beneath, it was hard to see anything clearly but there was definitely more light the further down she went, there was a tunnel. She gave up on pushing the water around and gripped herself along the rocky walls. Her face puffed out as she tried to hold the air in her lungs, she pulled faster, knowing that there probably wasn't any air for her to breath down here.

She was finally floating free again with nothing to grip onto, she pushed at the water with her arms and legs ineffectively, still she felt herself slowly floating to the top, she rallied at the water as she could feel her lungs failing, bubbles escaped from her nose and lips as she churned the water uselessly. She finally had to let the air go, but her body compulsively sucked in a mouthful of water to replace it. Her face broke the surface, she gasped and choked and sputtered out what water she could while trying to stay afloat, she flung her arms sideways at the water to try and propel herself to a wall. Her feet finally bumped ground and she gripped firmly with her toes, taking steps to the shallower areas.

When she reached a dry bank she knelt still half in the water, gagging and coughing water up from her lungs, her kneels and palms ached but her struggle to catch her breath was more urgent.

When she finally looked up and was able to wipe the water from her eyes she was surprised to see and end to the cave. It looked to be a grove, separate from the rest of the oasis as she couldn't hear any voices aside from one.

"You swim funny." A little girl stood on the bank looking down at her strangely.

Anya looked up at her miserably wet. "I can't swim at all."

"That explains it. You know there's a path down from the hill you could have walked on." The girl sounded quite smug in her knowledge.

"I'll try and use that next time." She gave another wracking cough trying to clear out was left. Her voice cracked a little as she spoke. " Is that path hidden? Because there's some bad men here that want to find you. They'll come here and hurt you."

"Why would they do that?" The girl sounded genuinely confused.

"I have taken care of the path." A deep gravelly voice spoke somewhere in the grove.

"Who was that?" Anya asked carefully, she didn't recognize the voice from anyone in her group, but that didn't mean it couldn't be one of them.

"That's Harold." The little girl smiled and stuck her thumb in her mouth. "Come on, I'll show you." Anya lifted herself on wobbly knees and allowed herself to be pulled behind the girl along a wide pillar to the open air. As they rounded to the far side the little girl stopped, Anya nearly stumbled into her. She turned to look at what she was staring at and nearly screamed at what she saw.

A face was what she had to call it, but it had few recognizable features as one. There were eyes, protruding and grotesque they lolled around to look at her, and a mouth that looked as though it might have been a knot but what lips it had were peeled back to reveal extraordinary gums and a set of human teeth. It was a tree, the giant pillar in front of the cave was a tree, with a face.

"I'm Harold. Sorry to frightened you. "

Anya struggled for words but found she couldn't speak in the presence of a tree that was speaking to her.

"I'm Yew." The little girl said next to her.

"Are…are trees supposed to talk? I mean, did they? Before the war?" Anya managed to stutter out the only thing she could think.

Harold laughed heartily, she wasn't sure what was so incredibly funny but it was weird to see a tree shake with laughter. She started to wonder if maybe she hadn't overdosed on the jet this time and was having some really strange hallucinations. "No, no I don't think they did. I'm a casualty of war, I was a person once, now I'm a tree too. This is Bob."

Anya waited a little apprehensively but no one else appeared, she opened her mouth to talk but was interrupted.

"Bob is the tree. I call him Herbert." The treeman laughed at his own joke.

"Oh." She said very carefully, mindful that she had backed away several paces without quite realizing it.

"We sprouted here and created this oasis, that's why those treeminders stay." He continued.

"Are you safe here? Is she safe here? Because I brought people here that are not…good." She finished lamely, not wanting to explain the level of criminal these men really were.

"She can hide here with me. I can make sure of that. Still got some control of these roots." She was pretty sure he had nodded.

Anya smiled politely at the tree, which was unnerving in itself. "Then I need to go. If I stay, they will come find all of us. I don't think they're partial to, talking trees."

"What's your name anyway?" He spoke like he had forgotten the joys of small talk.

"I'm Anya." She said very aware that she was still talking to a tree. "I am sorry for whatever else may happen here. Good luck little one." She patted Yew's head and felt sufficiently awkward. She didn't say anything else to the tree, she wasn't sure how you said goodbye. She also felt that her apology was going to be meaningless pretty soon. If the men felt like they should investigate further, roots probably weren't going to stop them for very long.

"Go like this!" Yew jumped into the air with her hands in a point and then brought them swiftly to her sides as she landed. "To swim." She nodded encouragingly.

Anya had almost forgotten there would be a swim back, her lungs still ached a little from her last encounter with the water. She walked into the water again and put her hands above her head, pushing down until her hands slapped into the water. She felt like an idiot.

"In the direction you want to go dummy!" Yew called after her, she turned back and gave a curt nod, being watched didn't help her feel any less like an idiot. She dipped her hands in the water again, this time in front of her, when she pushed her hands against the water she felt herself tugged slightly forward. She allowed herself a small smile, it had been a long time since she had learned something other than how to shut down. She got to the end of the cave and took a deep breath and bobbed her head beneath the water, her fingers pushed the water around her, pulling her forward into the tunnel.

She kicked with her legs as she used the walls again to pull her along. She briefly thought about stopping right there. She didn't have to go back, she could just stay here and breath deep of the water. She could just die right here and it would all be over. The fear was still there, but it was subsided in this silent murky place.

It was a short lived plan though, she knew Mal needed her, maybe not so much now, but caps were caps to him, you could never have enough of them. They would come looking for her, they would find Yew, and the tree. And then they'd destroy this whole place.

They might do it anyway, but she wasn't going to be the cause of it any more than she already was. She pulled herself along faster, her legs helped propel her forward now. When she reached the open pool she used her hands to cup the water behind her and broke the surface before she had to breath in any water. She took a deep gasp of fresh air with relief. She didn't think drowning would be an easy death to have.

Mal broke her sense of calm by dragging her out of the water by her hair.

"Just where the fuck 'ave you been?" He shook her violently, Anya noticed that the short man who had sent her down was standing very deliberately behind others.

"He sent me to look for people. I am the water witch after all. I only nearly drowned." She pointed at the man spitefully, he was a coward and she wanted everyone to know. Mal dropped her momentarily and turned on the man who was suddenly visible to everyone as they were all quick to create a distance between them and him. Mal closed the gap before the man could decide if he was better off making a run for it into the wastes. He didn't say anything at all, the man opened his mouth to come up with some excuse, began to beg as he saw Mal pull out his pistol. He didn't fire it though, he flipped it around in his hand and brought the heavy butt end down on the man's balding skull. The sound was a sick hollow thud and the man screamed and tried to duck behind his hands. Mal pushed his arms down and clubbed him over and over again with the gun. He continued to hit him when he finally fell to the ground and finally stopped moving. He continued as the man lay there still as a corpse, Mal's face was a mask of rage and blood that was now flying up from the end of the gun. He brought his arm down harder now that there was no mistake of missing his head until there was a very distinct crunch and crack of the skull collapsing under the bludgeoning. Mal continued to club the lifeless man until blood had sprayed all up his arms and onto his face, until he was just beating pulp into the ground.

No one spoke or moved to stop him, many of the men had stopped watching. Anya found she couldn't look away from Mal's face. It was contorted into such an ugly look of anger, his teeth gnashed together and spittle flew from his lips. His veins bulged out of his neck and the crimson coated most of him now.

He was panting when he finally stopped, he wiped the blood soaked gun with part of the dead mans shirt that still looked somewhat clean. He stuffed it back in his belt and stood up slowly daring anyone to make eye contact with him. His body was covered in blood and bits of the man, he looked like the madman he really was. Anya felt her stomach twist a little, she was part of that massacre, a deeper part of her was glad the man had suffered; the rest of her felt shaken with horror, she knew Mal was a cruel man, but she didn't know how truly psychotic he was. It frightened her to see what he was capable of, frightened her for the people who they had just found.

"If any one of ya want to let me now that you're a fucking moron," He looked carefully at each of the men who had backed into a wide circle and stared fiercely at the sky or their feet. "Now would be a good time to do it, just so's I don't have to wash again." His voice was dangerously low, Anya felt herself tremble uncontrollably.

Only silence and deathly still followed his question. He wiped his face with a cleaner side of his shirt doing little more than smearing the blood and stomped off. "Find somewhere to tie down the rest of em!" He shouted over his shoulder.

His search of the camp had been successful, he had managed to find a little more than a dozen people living in the grove. Some of them looked the worse for wear, but Anya didn't see any more bodies, she thought that was a promising sign. They were all shuffled into the trees and lashed together, someone dragged away the man who now had pulp where his head used to be and kicked dirt over the pool of blood.

Mal returned shortly with what was left of their booze with a big grin on his face. "Let's celebrate!" He shouted, all the men cheered with him, the horror they had seen instantly forgotten. They made a huge bonfire in the center of the oasis where there was no foliage to burn and drank until the stars in the sky swam. A few of the woman were released to be toyed with, Anya heard some of the screams from deeper in the trees. She found herself some Jet and dosed herself into oblivion. She lay back in the grass nearby and focused on breathing. She trembled on the ground, wishing she could erase the image of Mal covered in blood, wishing she didn't see how he had enjoyed doing it. Eventually the drug came to her rescue pulsing through her blood and erasing any real thoughts from her mind. Her limbs felt like they couldn't stop twitching but that didn't matter, all that mattered was the not thinking.

Mal found her just as her buzz came to a plateau and her limbs didn't feel like they were going to fly off anymore. She could smell how strongly he smelled of liquor, it choked the fresh air in the oasis before he was within ten paces of her.

"There ya are. Been lookin all over." He loomed over her in the dark, his features just barely visible in the orange flickering light. How she had first met him her brain hummed mockingly. He slurred his words and collapsed onto the grass next to her. His calloused hands roamed over her body, touching and squeezing, she felt so much hate for him, it pulsed in her blood along with the Jet. She could see where some of the blood was still crusted on his face. Hate and so much fear, she was powerless with this man, this monster. The hate powered through her but she couldn't focus at all, only wait for the inevitable. He fumbled with his pants as he climbed on top of her and grunted with effort. It was all over in a minute. He slumped half off of her and passed out with his arm stretched possessively across her stomach.

What was left of her sober mind screamed to strangle him while they were alone, murder him and leave them all behind. But the Jet had settled in nicely, letting the trance take over. She didn't have the strength or the courage to kill him. She fumbled in the grass instead, finding the Jet inhaler was a slow process for her muddled mind. She finally found it and took what was left in the canister unconcerned with how much that might be, stars danced in her eyes and she sighed a small sigh into oblivion.


	5. Chapter 5

Gabe hoisted his bag up over his shoulder, the weight had started to make him sag uncomfortably. The guards weren't ever especially rude to him, but it was always pretty apparent that they weren't interested in letting him in. Liked to make him wait like some kind of outcast even though they recognized him. They saw the people he associated with on the outside and they knew he was a whole bundle of trouble that they'd rather not get involved with. Fisher vouched for him though, and that meant a lot to the community, so while they hemmed and they hawed taking their time to open the gate for him, they never denied him entry.

They always tried to be extra thorough to check him for weapons, it was never quite thorough enough, but Gabe let them live in their happy oblivion without letting them know. He wasn't interested in starting a fight in this place anyway. It was nice to have somewhere that he could almost let his guard down in. Mostly his company was the type that you didn't blink your eyes around, sure they had an agreement when he took on their contracts, but it was never firm, caps had a slippery way of changing the rules.

He headed toward the café, not bothering to circle through town, he knew how he made them uncomfortable. He didn't really blame them, but if he kept his head down they didn't do much more than give him meaningful glares as he walked by. He had become a regular at the café, since that was where his home was, if you would call it that. Gabe couldn't be sure, but he had his suspicions that the town people had warned Fisher that it had to stay that way. They didn't like the idea of the freelancer being up in their homes in the cliffs, there were children up there after all.

His repeated visits had earned him a steady truce with the regulars in the café though. It was easy to distrust a man though rumors alone, but he seemed harmless enough when he came into town, so most people didn't let it bother them too badly when he walked in the door looking like a ruffian. A few gave him a nod from the porch as he walked up to the building. They had set up chairs and tables outside in an effort to keep the building itself less stuffy than it was likely to get in the high summer. They really only had two seasons now, Summer and High Summer. Fisher swore that they were starting to have a transition season, but Gabe hadn't really noticed. There were some days colder than others but he never really saw a pattern, though he didn't care much for the weather so it was anyone's guess.

He passed through the swinging doors and was immediately greeted by Heather wiping down the counter.

"Heya Gabe!" She half ran around the counter, a smile brightened up her face, she stopped just short of reaching him and stuffed her hands into her pocket awkwardly. "We were starting to wonder bout you." She smiled up at him anxiously.

"Yeah, I made it." He dropped the bag with a grunt, he hadn't really enjoyed much of the trip. Shipping human cargo to a settlement of slavers was a pain in the ass, and dangerous work. And his scavenging on the way back had been through a radiated bog, if there had been anything there of worth it had long since been sucked into the thick mud. He could still smell the stink of the bog on him, it had seeped into his clothes and hair. "You think you could cook me one of those amazing steaks?" He mustered up a polite smile for her even though he wasn't feeling especially friendly.

"Oh sure thing! I'll get that right up!" She seemed overly eager to have something to do, maybe the work had been slow that day. He collapsed into one of the booths sitting in a ring around the main dining area and started to unload the things he thought might be of use to Fisher.

Fisher finally did come out of the back room after a few minutes of waiting. He tidied up his shop shelves and moved some things to make it more presentable, it was something he did compulsively, before heading over to the table where Gabe sat.

"Had a nice trip?" Fisher asked absently while rummaging through the junk Gabe had brought back. He scratched his peppered beard, Gabe had noticed that all of Fishers black hair had started to go white. He didn't think Fisher wanted to hear that he was getting old, so Gabe decided to hold his tongue.

"Not really."Gabe grunted. "Got some batteries here, mostly just scrap metal though, and junk."

"Yeah, I see that." Fisher smirked at Gabe, he was an honest, if not wholesome boy. He reminded Fisher of himself in a lot of ways when he was younger. "And how did the slaving go?" His tone was harsher than he intended, they had become friends simply because of Fisher's noninterest in Gabe's doing. But he couldn't seem to help it now a days, he saw him straying down a dangerous path and he couldn't help but try and reach out to him.

"Servant traffic." Gabe corrected him sarcastically. "There's still just as many freaking muties out there as ever. And nothing to find on the way back. Think I might go up north on a scavving trip, just so I have something worthy of your attention to bring back." Gabe didn't seem to take notice of Fisher's tone, it was easy to fall into their same banter and forget what kind of trouble Gabe was getting into.

"Well, I'll certainly take these batteries off your hands,"

"You always do." Gabe said smugly, Fisher caught his eye and the boy seemed to be smiling suspiciously, but if he guessed anything he didn't say it.

"But the scrap metal is worthless. You might just take it to Rivet City. I hear that rusty science bucket might just sink this time." They both laughed at that, news of their 'research facility' had always made them laugh. They were both of the mindset that survival was just about as good as it was going to get any more, science was wasted in the wastes.

"Yeah, I'm sure the eggheads would get right to work repairing those holes. I heard they've only got one guy doing work on that thing. Seems ridiculous. I think I might fix her up and sail her right out to sea if I had the chance."

"Settling down? You?" Fisher teased him, in reality that was what he hoped Gabe would do, he saw how he turned harder and harder on these trips 'shipping cargo' he tried to pretend that it didn't eat at him to handle people like that, but it did, it was easy to see from the strained way he smiled now and from the growing lines on his face.

Heather interrupted them then with her smile and a plate full of food, she set down the steaming steak in front of Gabe and a set of silverware. "Here you go mr. adventure. And an ice cold beer complements of the house." She winked at him while handing over the brown bottle.

"Oh, thanks Heather," He almost managed a real smile. "This smells great." He immediately began to tear into the steak. He stuffed a big slice in his mouth and savored it. "God Heather, you know how to cook em. Squirrel stew was getting pretty old out there."

Heather blushed at the complement and smiled even wider if it was possible. "It's that spice those traders have been bringing in. Fisher laughed at me when I bought it, he said people still gotta eat. But we've sold twice as many steaks this month."

"Never argue with a woman." Fisher held up his hands in defeat. "I'm convinced."

"Anything else y'all need?" She twisted the towel in her hands nervously.

"Think we're good Heather. Thank you." Gabe tipped his beer bottle at her and nodded. She almost skipped away back to the kitchens, he took a swig of beer and nearly choked. "Jesus Fish, she wasn't kidding. You been playing with that freezer again?"

"Yeah, I might have gotten it working. If you leave the beer in too long the whole glass shatters though. Haven't figured out that one yet." Fisher watched Heather out of the corner of his eye, she hummed contentedly to herself while cleaning up the various messes other customers had left behind with a small smile still on her face.

"You know Heather is an awful sweet girl." Fisher nodded toward her while Gabe chewed on some more steak, he looked over his shoulder where she was cleaning, she caught them watching and waved excitedly. Gabe nodded and tried to smile around his stuffed cheeks.

"Umhm." He nodded in agreement while intently focusing on cutting off his next piece of steak.

"You ever think about really settling down?" Fisher asked, cautiously looking away from Gabe's face as he worked out what Fisher was really trying to say. He snorted.

"Oh come on, I mean, jesus she can sure cook, but Heather's just a kid-"

"Not more than a kid yourself, boy." Fisher raised his eyebrows at him, life expectancy was low, but 25 was still barely into adulthood. "As I see it, when two decent people find each other-"

Gabe cut him off with a stare, his eyes were very serious now. "I'm not 'decent people' Fisher. You know that." His tone was low and gave no room for argument. Fisher had never heard Gabe talk about himself like that, and with such malice in his voice, it was a little frightening.

"Forget I mentioned it." Fisher didn't want to pursue the topic any further, Gabe would come around eventually and find that survival was just survival, there weren't good or bad ways of doing it, just ways. He just hated to see Heather pine away for the man when he clearly wasn't ready, maybe never would be from the way he had reacted. Maybe he'd have a talk with the girl, try and convince her that there were other rocks in the wastes.

"Done," Gabe mumbled, already turning his attention back to the steak. "I've got something else for you if you're interested in taking a look later." That was their code for Gabe having come across, or commandeering an interesting weapon of some sort, something that always interested Fisher.

"Will do, will do. Why don't you head upstairs when you're done here. I'll come up a little later." Fisher lifted himself slowly from the chair, it was always an extra challenge to go from sitting to standing with his dratted leg. Gabe nodded in agreement and then was totally lost in the steak, Fisher caught Heather gazing over hopefully at the back of his head without being aware she was doing it. He sighed and decided not to interfere, he couldn't help that he had taken an interest in the both of them.

Heather had become a daughter to him from when she had first started helping him around the shop, she had been brought to town with her father but he was a drunken lout who worked nights at the water mill and got to spend most of his time drinking with his buddies. It hadn't taken much convincing to bring Heather out of her shell and to the shop to help him with sweeping, she had probably been ten when she started helping him out, it had been almost 9 years now that she had been there. Her father had passed away a couple years ago, probably from a rotten liver, but they hadn't been really talking at that point anyway. All she inherited from him was his empty bottle collection and a room that smelled like sour beer.

She was doing well at the café, Fisher found himself a little surprised at how well she seemed to pick up cooking when he himself knew very little of it. Perhaps it was something her mother had taught her before she came to be in Vertville. He hadn't wanted to ask. The café had even been her idea, he had always had the shop and a bar attached to it where some folk came to pour themselves a meal. He suspected that she hated to see them waste away just like her dad and that's why she had suggested the cafe. They had expanded into the building next door and had built her a proper kitchen with a refrigerator and everything. There were a few eateries around town but people began to show up immediately, it helped that it was the closest food to the front gate so any travelers who happened by would be caught by the smells of fresh cooked meat from inside. It was how they had snagged Gabe, that boy who had crept into Fisher's life like the ghost of Christmas past.

He had been gruff and uncommunicative initially, but he had brought lots of supplies, more importantly good supplies, so much that Fisher had wondered if he had really found all these things just laying around. But he knew better than to ask questions and that was probably why Gabe had come back again and again. When Fisher heard that he was sleeping out in the temporary camp with the rest of the homeless ruffians who came begging for handouts he decided to offer out the room above the café. Fisher himself usually slept above the store, but with their expanding for the café they had a spare room that just sat up there collecting junk slowly. He had accepted the offer, but remained wary of Fisher.

Fisher had come up for the night, maybe a week or two after inviting Gabe in, after a long day of hunting and found Gabe making a ruckus up in his room, he came storming up the stairs as fast as he could, swearing at himself for trusting some thug stranger. He found Gabe tinkering under the useless toilet that had been taking up room in his space for too long already. Gabe smiled at him, his first real smile as he pulled the string and the hunk of junk that had done nothing for years suddenly flushed.

"How the hell did you do that?" He blurted out, unable to help himself, he had also tried to get the toilet working by tinkering with it with no luck, and he thought of himself as a pretty savvy tinkerer.

Gabe's smile faded a little as old memories darkened his brow. Fisher knew that look, hell, everyone knew that look. "Used to know a guy." He said with a shrug. "Anyway, it's all radiated, didn't think you wanted me flushing drinking water, so you know, don't bathe in it."

Fisher knew he was a good kid then, just felt it in his soul. From that point on he couldn't help but like him, he had weeded his way in and was plumb stuck. He just wished Gabe could see what he saw. He grunted as he swung his bad leg over a step. Stubborn as a Brahmin, and twice as hardheaded. Fisher knew the type; he was that type. He knew there was a reason he liked him.


	6. Chapter 6

**This is an author's note. This is an extremely adult/ violent chapter. It does little to progress the story except tell you what a sick scumbag Mal is. Really, I don't want to offend anyone, so please, please, if you are in anyway concerned about my warning, but want to know what happens, just PM me, I'll tell you in the best fuzziest sesame street words I know. And we'll all live in a happy sunshiny world.**

**Seriously. Dark stuff. And multiple(excessive?) uses of the F word here.**

**I just wanted to give everyone a heads up.**

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Mal sat on his porch overlooking his own personal oasis, he was quite pleased with himself. He had come a long way from being some half assed raider trash. He was high society now, an everlasting supply of water at his disposal, enough caps to roll around in, and a woman he could claim as his own. His pa would have been proud if the piece of shit had still been around to see what his 'nancy boy' son had accomplished. He sneered at the memory, too impotent to keep a women around for long he had taken it out on his son. He was just jealous, jealous of his own fifteen year old son.

He had got what he deserved in the end, an axe to the skull from a hunting accident. He chuckled out loud, his father was so much of a fuckin' drunk he didn't even have to convince anyone of the lie. They just marked it up as a stupid old fool getting himself killed. He found he had a taste for it after that. Watching the light fade from his father's eyes as it dawned on the old man that _he_ had killed him, the power he felt as he played god in the wastes. It wasn't anything like when he killed mole rats, they were just dumb beasts born for the slaughter. To kill a _man_, that gave him real power.

Some of the treeminders were stooped around the brook that ran through the oasis, filling bottles as quickly as they could. He could tell their heart wasn't in it, but it didn't need to be. He had conquered them, they were his to use now. The women of the group had been given to his men to keep them satisfied when the days stretched out between hunting trips. He heard their screams in the woods, the bitches loved it, probably were fuckin' waiting for some real men to come around and show them how to do it right. That's when he decided that he would keep Anya for himself. She was the special one, the special girl. Let the men have the waste trash treeminders. He had only had to teach the men once what would happened when they touched Anya.

That man was still staked out front, his gut slashed open and most of his blood drained into a pool on the ground beneath him. He had finally stopped stinking a day or so ago. The sun would roast him until there was nothing left but bones. He smiled as he watched Anya standing near the larger pool of water, she stared blankly into the trees, looking at nothing and no one. Someone must still be slipping her the fuckin' Jet. He glowered, he told them she was to be cut off, she was still getting a secret stash from someone, she was always vacant like that. She hadn't said a word to him in four days. He'd make her fuckin' talk to him if that's what she needed.

He had bought her a nice blue dress from a trader to cheer her up the other day, the whore should be grateful to him. She should be on her knees begging for a way to please him. He had gotten her proper clothes again, not like those rags she had been wearing. She had privileges that _he_ had given to her. She wore the dress now, it shifted gently in the breeze, her shoulder and hip bones were still slightly visible beneath the thin cloth. She hadn't been eating enough, he had given her the best food they were getting, twice as much as what he used to. None of that radiated meat, only fresh stuff for her. He had bought her a fucking apple for Christ sake, that bitch was starving just to prove a point. Fuck if he knew what kind though. Women were all fuckin' cracked in the head. Probably stemmed from her not having been with a real man for so long. He had come to save her from herself, he just wanted to make her see how good he was, how good she had it because of _him_.

All she ever did was stand there, staring at the fucking trees. But she was his now, and she'd do exactly what he fuckin told her to from now on. He'd let her have free reign for too long. That was going to end now. He felt his grip tightening on his knees while he seethed about the ungrateful bitch, he ground his teeth as he glared at Anya standing there oblivious to everything. More importantly oblivious to _him_. He'd fucking show her.

She lay quietly where he had directed her to, she was usually pretty compliant, he couldn't complain about that too much. He hiccoughed into his hand, he had run through some of the whisky stores this afternoon to console himself. After everything he did for everyone he didn't feel like he go the respect he deserved. He was going to start with teaching Anya.

He slid his hand across her stomach, he could feel her breathing slowly, no change as his hands slipped lower. She should be fuckin' excited that he wanted to be with her, she was a pile of shitty bones, she should at least have the decency to be excited for him. He pulled the dress up over her head and, seeming to know what was expected of her, she lifted her arms over her head. It was always the same. She was like some kind of dead fuckin fish. He unzipped his pants and lay on top of her, it was going to be different tonight. She'd see it his way. He'd make fuckin' sure.

"Baby. I want you to touch me." He said gruffly kissing at her neck, she lolled her head to the side to accommodate him but made no attempt to move her arms. He grabbed her hand roughly pulling it down between them. "Touch it." He commanded, he wasn't going to fuck around with this little girl. She was going to do what he wanted and she was going to fuckin enjoy it. Her hand did finally grasp him lightly. "Yessss." He hissed through his teeth. "Tell me you like it." If she had heard him she didn't say anything. He pushed himself up to stare directly into her vacant eyes, forcing her to see him as a _man_. "Tell me. You like it." He said a deadly tone. She finally did see him, she looked right up into his eyes, her gray eyes sparkled with lucidity for just one moment. And then she started to laugh. It was a low throaty laugh, and she just continued, picking up speed as she went. He growled before raising his fist and connecting with her face solidly. He hit her once more just to prove who was in charge. Bruises were part of learning.

The fucking bitch continued to laugh! Even as blood spurted from her nose the laughter still came in choking wheezes that shook her whole body. He lifted her shoulders and tried to slam her head against the ground so she would stop but it had little effect on her, her eyes rolled back but she continued the merciless laughter blood dripping down into her open mouth.

"Have it your way you fucking bitch!" He shouted into her face with spittle flying from his lips, he flipped her onto her stomach and twisted her arm up between her shoulder blades, he twisted it sharper as he worked into her, a grin starting to form as the laughter stopped. It turned to gasping sobs and finally, with a thin snap he felt in his hand, a piercing scream. He chuckled softly to himself. "That's a good girl." He decided to finish before he let go of her arm, he shrill screams rose and subsided with the weight he put against her.

She moaned and gasped curling into a ball as he got off of her, now it wasn't laughter but tears that shook her body. He knew she was just a good for nothing whore, but she was his fuckin whore, and he had made her see it his way. Bruising was just part of learning.


	7. Chapter 7

_Gabriel! Get up Gabriel! GABRIEL!_

He struggled to rise from his dream until he nearly threw himself into consciousness. The sheets stuck to him in a haphazard way, he was sweating and it tangled him further in the twisted bedding. It was a moment before he could steady his panicked breathing, reminding himself it was just a dream he brought his hand to his face, still trembling, and covered his eyes.

"Give it a rest, Gabe." He said to himself in a weak voice, suddenly sounding much younger. His adrenalin was still causing him to shake and he was too rattled to try and drift to sleep again. He threw off the sheet in disgust and headed downstairs, Fisher's low snores reassured him that he hadn't woken anyone. He headed to the kitchen and found the sink in the dark, twisted the rusty tap and splashed the cold water onto his face and neck. He stood there hunched over the sink, letting the water drip from his chin. Letting out a shaky breath he willed himself to calm, closing his eyes once more.

Images flashed before his eyes, the flames throwing dangerous shadows across threatening men, the screaming girl. Her face was mostly a blur in the dream, he wasn't sure if he really remembered what she looked like, what Cale had looked like. He had no warm memories of that place, only the haunting screams of a desperate girl. Many years, and more miles had made the whole thing seem like a lifetime ago, and yet it still plagued him. Possibly why he continued to live like a criminal, hoping to bury the past with an ugly present. Trying so hard to erase that frightened voice from his mind.

"She's dead. It's not your fault." He sternly told himself, the thought of sleeping again made him uneasy, but he would have to try if he wanted to be any help to Fisher tomorrow. He fumbled around in the dark for the bottle of scotch he knew was beneath the sink and poured himself a small glass, gulping down a burning swallow with relief.

A loose floorboard groaned deeper in the café, he set the glass down silently and felt along the counter for the kitchen knife he knew was there. There were definite footsteps now, they approached hesitantly, as though trying to mask their advance. He stooped down below the counter, where he knew shadow would mask his presence completely. His eyes adjusted slightly, the kitchen was still a blur of murky darkness, but he could see the difference in the dark of the café, and the figure that passed through it. He waited until it passed his hiding place and then rose up silently on his toes behind it. His left arm swept around and groped until it could pin both of the intruders arms down and with his right hand pressed the edge of the blade warm flesh.

"You picked the wrong people to fuck with, pal." He said as he dragged the blade upward against the skin in threat.

" Gabe!" A familiar voice squeaked. "It's me!" He dropped his hands away in utter surprise, trying to check the surge of adrenalin that was now pulsing furiously through his veins.

"Jesus, Heather, I'm sorry."His voice came out hoarse, he fumbled for the lights on the wall bathing the kitchen in a warm yellow glow. Heather stood in the center looking very small, her eyes were wide with fright and her hand trembled at her throat, a smear of red across her hand where she had been bleeding. "Oh fuck," He said stupidly, grabbing a towel from the counter and splashing a bit of the scotch over it. He went to dab at her throat and she flinched a little, shame burned through his body and he instead handed the towel to her so that she could press it against her wound. "I'm so sorry." He repeated himself pulling his hand down over his face.

Heather gave a nervous chuckle. "You scared me there for a minute. Thought you were gonna cut me." She laughed again but it seemed forced. Gabe tried to give her a reassuring smile but the truth was that he nearly had, hell, there was blood on the towel, there was no 'nearly' about it. But it could have been worse, much worse, and that's what made his blood run cold. "I'm okay." She waved away his mortified look, "I didn't feel nothing. Honest." Her smiled seemed more genuine this time and he tried to stamp down his own panic. He sat down heavily at one of the tables, his nerves completely shattered for the evening.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't sleep." He dragged his hand through his hair in a nervous gesture.

"Yeah," She said sheepishly, bringing the bottle of scotch with her and two glasses when she sat down next to him. Her hand touched her throat unconsciously, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped already. "I heard."

"Oh… " He couldn't think of anything else to say, a burning shame swept through him. "Sorry." He accepted a half glass of the scotch and sipped on the sharp drink, staring into the amber fluid.

"Don't be. Everyone has nightmares. Heck, I'd be shocked if you didn't." She reached across the table and placed her hand on his arm in a comforting way. "It's really okay. I'm really okay." He appreciated the gesture but withdrew his arm to rub at his temples.

"Now why'd you go and do that? Act like I'm poisonous to you." She crossed her arms and scowled at him, it was one of the only times he had seen something other than a smile on her face. The change in her demeanor surprised him, as did the sudden topic shift.

"You're not." He said, his tongue felt awkward in his mouth. He had never been much of a talker, and expressing himself was never a high point.

"Coulda fooled me." She humphed at him and took a deep swig of her own drink her eyes glittering.

He didn't really know how to explain, he hadn't been completely unaware of Heather's growing interest, but then he hadn't really thought she was serious either. He was a useless drifter, and a dangerous one at that. His palms started to sweat while he tried to figure out how he could explain to her the multitude of things that were wrong with him.

"I see the gears are turning. Don't bother with whatever excuses you've got to make up. I'm not interested." He could see she was hurt and hated that he done that, she stood and started to walk from the table. He reached out before he could stop himself and grabbed for her arm. She stopped easily but her face looked closed up.

"I'm the problem Heather, I'm the screwed up one."

"It's not you, it's me?" She smirked at him. "Ain't ever heard that one."

"That's exactly it." He sighed as she rolled her eyes at him. He continued on awkwardly now, needing her to understand. He stood and paced by the chair, his eyes darting in and out of eye contact, she leaned against the table waiting for more. "Heather, you're a fine girl," He corrected himself quickly. " a fine woman. If I would have met you ten years ago I'd be nipping at your heels every chance I got, making dumb excuses to be around you. By now I'd have you chasing little ones around the house, we'd be running a little part shop and Fisher wouldn't have to hunt in the wastes ever again."

She was clearly startled by his sudden jumble of words, she felt heat rise to her face as she thought of them having children together, wondered absently if there'd be any girls.

"But." The one word brought her crashing back down into reality. His voice was so earnest she hated for him to shatter her bliss. Before she lost her nerve she dove forward and pressed her lips up against his. For an agonizing moment she thought he was going to rebuff her, but then his frozen lips moved, gently returning the kiss. She ran her hands through his hair and pulled him up against her, his kisses were delicate at first, afraid she might break, but he kissed her with need now. His hands drew up her back, caressing her skin as his fingers slipped beneath her shirt.. Chills jumped up her spine as she leaned her body against his, his tongue traced along her lips and then deeper. She groaned with a smile and then broke away from him, trailing kisses down his jaw to his neck. He tasted sharply of sweat as she dragged her lips along his tender skin and it drove her wild. She ran her own fingers across his bare chest and down his taut stomach. She found his lips again and explored his mouth with her own tongue. She started to fumble with the elastic at his waist when she felt herself hoisted in the air and set on the table bodily. She grinned until she felt the cold of his absence. She opened her eyes and saw he had retreated several steps back. She felt flush with excitement and a little frustrated they had stopped..

"I can't do this." He eyed her warily and his chest was moving rapidly, she was a little out of breath herself.

"Why the heck not? I do somethin' wrong?" She sounded angrier than she meant but the rejection after an initial breach had her confounded. She stood up, trying to regain her composure and not look as though she had just been unceremoniously dumped.

"No," He said quickly shaking his head, his eyes held a haunted expression. "I'm a bad person Heather. I know you don't see that, but it's true. Folk in this town know it's true. And I'd just bring you nothing but the worst kind of trouble. I ain't right." His voice shook as he said it, knowing he hated himself more than anyone could. They stood in silence for an uncomfortable moment, Heather trying to let some kind of understanding trickle through what he had just said.

"Well, I just want you to know, that you're not a bad person, because _I _know it's true." He opened his mouth to argue but she pressed her fingers to his lips, effectively silencing him. "And Fisher knows it's true. And I just want to tell you, so that someday, you'll know it's true. And then maybe you won't have to deal with all this baggage you've made for yourself." She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, a small smile curled her lips upward. "You should start that part shop, get out of the scavenging trade, I know the men you ride with, men who make you feel like you're not really a man, just a thug. And that's not you, no matter how hard you hide from it." She finished the last of her scotch with a final swig and squinted her eyes. "You know where to find me if you change your mind, goodnight Gabe." She turned on a heel and walked out the door.

He leaned against the table and let out a slow breath. Half of him wanted to chase after her, finish what they had started here in the café, get their own house in town somewhere, settle down. Make a life. The other half hated himself even more now that he had hurt Heather, the woman who only had a smile for everyone. Hated that he was a coward, he shouldn't want those things, he had told himself a long time ago that he'd never make a family in this place. The Wastes was no place for a family. And he was no kind of man for a family.

He packed up his gear and set himself up for an extended trip, running away again. It was the best way, he wasn't sure he could face Heather's smiling face again tomorrow. Or Fisher's knowing stare, couldn't stand to disappoint the people who cared about him so much. He packed up some rations and left several caps for the food he had troubled Fisher for. Before he left he stooped under the kitchen counter and replaced the half empty bottle of scotch with a full one he had found on his last excursion, pre-war. He knew Fisher would enjoy it, he hoped he would understand. He hoisted his bag over his shoulder and set out into the night.

* * *

Traveling on his own was something of a blessing, he needed the time alone, time for his thoughts. It was simpler just worrying about where his next meal would come from, and possibly where the next molerat would pop up. He followed the highway that stretched northwest, zigzagging his way, crossing plenty of ground to find the best loot. He wasn't in any hurry to get back, food and water he had, sleep he found at night, sometimes under the clear sky, sometimes in a long abandoned home. The routine was soothing, get up, eat, search for worthwhile junk.

He thought a lot about not going back, the further out he got, the more the idea appealed to him. He had gotten too comfortable in Vertville, sure he extended his travels to other towns, but mostly he came back to call it 'home'. The word made him feel trapped, made him afraid. Like at any moment it could all be torn away. It would have been nice to have said goodbye, but he knew himself, knew it would be easy to fall back into the old habit. Pretending he belonged with them. It would be easier this way, maybe better on Heather too. Might be he could send back some caps, keeping his distance but not feeling as though he had completely abandoned them.

He continued north further than he had before, the area more mountainous, he skipped it for the reasons that everyone skipped it, it would be a pain in the ass to hike up, and might have nothing to offer. He decided to push on this time, maybe it would pay off, and the sooner he finished scavenging, the sooner he had to decide if he would return to Vertville at all, or if he'd just move on completely. He kept an eye out for predators, they weren't so common this high up, but his paranoia had kept him out of trouble more than once. The hills grew higher still, and he was panting to find footholds in the rocky ground, it took him the better part of an hour to hike his way up once he started having to climb. The sun beat down and there wasn't much of a breeze to offer relief, he started to wonder if this had been a good idea after all. He stumbled onto a small game trail just as he was sure he wasn't going to be able to climb much higher, he noticed a little sheepishly that it seemed to lead further down the mountain, something he probably would have been able to find if he had bothered looking. It curved around the hill and disappeared behind a bend, it looked well worn, and recently used. He pulled up his hunting knife in case he should come to surprise something nastier than a crow.

He followed the trail, aware of his surroundings, there was a different smell up here, he couldn't quite place it. He shook it off as the stone echoed strange noises to his ears, voices. He slowed his pace and pushed his head around the corner of the next rock outcropping to see who was up ahead.

The path widened substantially once it passed this bend and there was a man standing at the far end, goading a woman who knelt in the path. Her arms and legs bound together and she looked roughed up. He was encouraging her to try and run again with the heel of his boot. The rage bubbled up inside him and before he knew what he was doing he had stepped out from behind the rock, his face grim. The man turned at the sudden movement and opened his mouth to shout when Gabe's hunting knife found itself lodged in the man's chest. The shout came out as a wheezing gasp and he clutched at the knife before blood bubbled up from his lips and he collapsed face first into the ground.

Gabe retrieved his knife quickly and wiped the blood off on the man's shirt. The woman sat crouched nearby, uncertainty clouded her features. He supposed she didn't have any more reason to trust him than she had the man who now lay dead in the dirt.

"Are you alright?" He asked her, approaching slowly holding the knife out to show he meant no harm. She looked suspicious but didn't draw back when he moved to cut her bindings. Once her arms and legs were freed she nodded. He looked around and saw that the path led further into the mountain. "Are there more of them?"

She still looked a little out of sorts, half starved and beaten, but she seemed to be getting more alert. She nodded again, rubbing her wrists where the rope had chafed them painfully.

"Ten? Maybe?" She shrugged. "Some had gone to sell off water up north. The rest are spread out in the grove, but they won't be expecting any trouble." He nodded his thanks and started to move on. She hesitated a moment, eying the rifles strapped to his back. "If you've got a spare gun, I know how to use one." He eyed her carefully, he wasn't in the habit of arming strangers. "They've got my family." She said quietly. Something in her eyes told him she wasn't lying, he gave a quick nod and pulled them both out, one for him and one for her. He probably wouldn't be lucky enough to be able to take any others out with his knife without getting shot first.

"Alright, let's go find your family." They both set their faces in a determined way and marched down the path, rifles at the ready.


	8. Chapter 8

"Let me lead." He strode ahead, mindful of the sound his feet made in the rocky terrain, she fell in step behind him. The trail seemed to circle wide around the base of the mountain, the walls rose up around them as they continued, until the sky was only a slender ribbon above their heads. They finally reached a gate that seemed to signify the end of the trail, it was covered in green leaves, tendrils that crawled across the naked posts. He lost himself for a brief second before he noticed the man leaning up against the gate, his snores interrupting the silence. The shock of seeing something alive and growing would have to wait.

The gate was wide open and it seemed that they had only left the two men to cover it, one was already dead, and the other asleep at his post. They were clearly expecting no visitors. He wasn't too surprised though, sheer dumb luck had led him here, and that wasn't something that there was an abundance of out in the wastes. He held his hand for the woman to wait while he crossed the last few strides between them and the man, making no sound as he moved. He brought his hand to the mans face and slit his throat methodically. He stopped mid snore and his eyes fluttered open, his gaze darted about in a panicked way until they drifted closed again. Gabriel released his head and it slumped to the side, his life spilling down his chest. He motioned the woman forward and she approached, her gaze a little uneasy. Killing had come easy for him, something that was becoming apparent to her. She caught him watching her and her concern passed, replaced by hardened determination. She didn't think these pigs deserved any more mercy than he did. The crossed the gate leaving the guard where he lay, looking as though he was still asleep, except for the massive blot that now stained his shirt.

He paused once to look back the greenery, it crawled up the gate and toward the light above them.

"It's ivy." The woman offered, he nodded his thanks. It looked untarnished by the wastes, healthy, it was like he was imagining it, and yet here it was, growing despite the radiation that must have blasted these hills. They continued on and he noticed his footing became quieter still, he looked down to see that the worn rock path had been replaced by something else, dirt it looked to be, and yet it was different from what he was used to. And long green blades sprouted up from it in disorganized patches, his pace slowed while he couldn't help but inspect it.

"Never seen grass before either?" The woman asked. He had certainly heard of it, it seemed to be the one thing that was managing to grow in some places this long after the war, but it was very different seeing it. Knowing that it was alive, he knelt to touch it, an unusual texture, and yet very much alive.

"Keep your wits about you, it's going to get more impressive further in." She piped up.

He shook his head, mindful that this complete stranger was the one to remind him that he should focus on the task at hand, he nodded his understanding and released the grass. He stood once more and strode forward. Her seeming indifference to the whole thing was impressive to him, he could live his whole life near this stuff and he wasn't sure that the novelty would wear off, certainly not after all his years in the wastes.

He had heard rumors of places like these, places where plants still grew, but they had always been rumors, nothing more. Everyone knew nothing but mutated weeds grew out in the wastes. He had heard more recently that the scientists in Rivet City were working toward growing healthy fruits, trying to feed the world. He seriously doubted they were making any kind of progress, the war had poisoned everything, and it was going to stay that way for a very long while. He steeled himself against what surprises might come later, he would not be caught with his jaw on the floor again.

They didn't have to go much further for the end of the trail to become apparent, one more corner and suddenly it opened up completely. The light returned to full blast and he had not realized how dim the trail had been until he found himself blinking in the harsh daylight. Once his eyes adjusted he was briefly lost in the beauty. The whole place was green and lush, it was like some other world. He felt his breath catch in his chest as he admired it for a moment. The air seemed fresh up here, clean, there were trees, real living trees, not dried and burnt husks. A woman's cry in the distance brought him back to reality in a heartbeat, along with the woman's hand on his shoulder, forcing him down to the ground. The trail ended where a tree stump fell across the path. He couldn't help but be a little distracted by the small bits of life that were growing across the dead tree. But he tore his gaze away and looked on, they both took cover behind the stump and waited.

A cluster of people appeared to be tied together around one of the larger trees, they all looked just as starved and abused as the woman at his side. The men seemed to be strapped up against the tree itself while the woman were only tied by a long rope attached around their wrists. A tall gangly man looked down on the woman with a grin, he chanted "eenie, meenie, miney-" As he tapped the heads of the women in turn. They each cringed at his touch.

A powerful crack of gunfire echoed through the grove and interrupted the silence of the place. The man brought his hand to his side slowly, and turned in the direction he had been shot. He looked up and found the woman still staring at him through her site. Gabe had not even noticed that she had stood up. His face turned ugly but then he cried out, the full extent of the pain finally reaching his senses. He fell to his knees, the hand clutched at his side tried to stem the flow of blood that seeped between his fingers. Coughing and gasping he reached toward the prisoners, they kicked out with their feet, shoving his hands away and watched as he bled out on the ground

"Good shot." Gabe said with surprise. The prisoners looked around fearfully in their direction, unsure of what to expect from newcomers who came in shooting. The shot had been loud, and the captives voices were getting louder, he hopped over the log and surveyed the area quickly, a fallen pile of boulders supplied ample cover to his left, a large cluster of trees would serve as well to the right. He nodded the woman over to the opposite side where the trees were, branches intertwined together providing a camouflaged shield.

"Head over there, we can cover from both sides when they come." He made his way over to the boulders, hoping to draw them all out and not have to go hunting for anyone. She nodded and sprinted across the open area, the people cried out to her, recognizing the woman as one of their own, begging for her help. She determinedly ignored them and disappeared behind the trees.

Four men appeared from the trees further north and the captives had the sense to stop calling for the woman then, carefully avoiding their eyes. The men looked confused, and then angry when they saw their comrade fallen in the dirt, dying, if not dead already.

"What did you bloody do?" One of the men shouted down at the prisoners, pressing his pistol into their faces, threatening each of them, spittle flying from his angry lips. His partners started to pull their weapons, suspiciously scanning the trees around them. Gabe didn't wait for them to try and sort it out, he dropped two of them in as many bullets. The leader spun around, firing in random directions, the woman dropped the man who stood next to him and he screamed. He turned to their general direction and started to fire, Gabe ducked behind the rocks and waited for him to stop. When he emerged again the man was running for the trees, he opened fire then, a spray of bullets catching him in the legs and causing him to tumble to the ground with a cry.

He waited another moment when movement caught the corner of his eye, the woman was already running toward the tree where the people were still tied down. Her face covered in tears but smiling, the people reached out to her, laughing and crying at the same time. He popped up from behind the rock and followed her path, slower, trying to keep an eye out still.

The terrain was unfamiliar and he wasn't looking for any surprises, he couldn't really see where the trees ended. He knew from the echoes that the rest of the mountain had to be out there somewhere, but he couldn't see it behind the trees that soared into the sky. It could only be a couple miles wide, it would be impossible to keep something so large hidden for so long.

The crack of gunfire caught him off guard. His eyes went to where the woman was stooped, she had just finished untying her friends and family. She stood and reached for her rifle, he tried to shout for her to stay low, but it was too late. The next couple shots took her in the chest, he saw when they impacted her, her body jerking violently. Her hands went limp and dropped the weapon to the ground. She followed shortly after, falling face first into the dirt, unable to slow her collapse.

Gabe swore loudly and opened fire, spraying shots along the tree line, uncaring of the waste of bullets. He saw one of the attackers fall from behind the trees. He paused his fire long enough for the second man to pop out and opened fire once more. He crossed the open area and added two bullets to each of the men they had shot earlier, ensuring their deaths. He stomped across to the others hidden in the tree and finished the one. His blood pounded in his ears as he searched for the second man, he had crawled a little ways further and spun around, firing a shot wide of Gabriel. He brought his boot down on his arm hard and pressed the barrel of his rifle against the man's skull before it exploded in a mess. He felt the sharp burning in his arm, but upon inspection it wasn't much more than a graze. Though he could feel the warm blood trickling down his arm.

He ignored the pain and surveyed the trees, his senses were heightened now, every shivering branch, every creaking tree, he took it all in. They were alone again. No one was coming through the trees. He turned back and headed toward the captives, they were all clustered around where the woman fell, she was spun onto her back, her face covered in dirt from where she fell.

"Is she alright?" He asked hoarsely. A woman clutched her hand and sobbed inconsoulably. He knelt nearby and felt for a pulse, there was none. Her face was pale as snow and her eyes stared out into nothing, already starting to cloud over. He sighed in frustration, he should have seen them coming. Shaking his head he was furious with himself. "I'm sorry." He offered quietly, knowing it couldn't possibly help these people now. They hardly bothered to look at him, some stranger from the wastes, their concern was with the woman they had known and loved, who now lay dead at their feet.

He stood to go, intent on exploring the area further, to make sure it was free from these monsters.

"There are more of them." One of the woman offered, clutching at his sleeve. "In the trees, there is a hut." She pointed the way with a thin finger and her eyes glittered sadly, but there was a fury deeper in there, she wanted them all dead. He clenched his teeth, resolute in finishing the job.

"Thank you." He spoke to the woman and took the rifle into his hands, heading into the trees. He had not noticed before but the quiet was unsettling under the cover of the trees, everything was dampened and felt closed in. Like the trees were absorbing the sound, it was still bright enough to see, but the light was muted by the leaves. It was still beautiful, but in a haunted way, perhaps so much death in one day caused him to see only the oppressive side of the forest instead of the bustling life. It was still unsettling to walk through the trees and he absently wondered if the trees could think. It was something a child would have said, but he felt his pace quicken anyway as he tried to eat up the distance under the branches.

The trees thinned slightly after a few minutes of hiking and the pressure started to release. He came to a clearing that had been made in the center of it all, no trees came into the circle that had been cut away for a meeting place of some sort. An elevated bowl stood in the center, some thick substance sat drying in the vessel. A large wooden frame towered over the seats that were arranged surrounding the bowl and from it hung an elderly man. He looked to have been dead for a long while, and at his feet, an equally old woman lay with a curious dent in her skull, old blood stained the ground beneath her. He shuddered and continued on, more light beckoning him further into the forest.

Voices started to drift toward him then, he made his way more carefully then, ducking behind a tree now an again.

"Been awfully quiet, think they've got it sorted?" The man sounded nervous but Gabe couldn't quite see them yet. Slowing his pace he started to see a figure of a shack through the trees, rusted metal hastily thrown together to keep out the worst of the weather.

"Of course they have." The second man sounded smug, confident, and oddly familiar. "Just a bunch of farmers, not like they can cause that much of a ruckus. I doubt they've even seen a gun before."

"We shoulda got rid of the lot. Heap of trouble and more mouths to feed." The man still sounded unsure, like he had been afraid of them. "Well, the men anyway." His voice turned vulgar and Gabe could hear the sneer on his face. He could see him clearly then, between two trees, his head was shaved down to stubble and he looked well armed. He raised his gun and stepped forward, still trying to sneak up on them when he heard a fallen branch snap beneath his foot.

"Georgie? That you?" The man snapped his head around and his eyes opened wider when he saw the weapon pointed at him.

"No." Gabe said quietly and squeezed the trigger slowly, there was a pop and the man flew back, half his face missing. He crossed the remaining distance to the shack, there wasn't even a door on the thing, just three large walls and a roof, a man lay on a makeshift bed, a beer balanced on his abnormally large stomach. No one lived that well out in the wastes. His mouth dropped open and his spilled the beer, causing it to shatter on the floor.

"Who the fuck-" He started to search for his weapon that he had left casually somewhere. Gabe wasn't watching him anymore, his eyes were on the girl curled up and leaning against the bed frame. She looked emaciated and bruised, though she looked cleaner than the rest of the captives he had seen. One of her arms was wrapped in gauze and a splint and lay useless on the floor. Her eyes stared vacantly where the dead man lay and then dragged to where the beer had splashed up against her. She was hardly a wraith, half starved as she was. And yet something in his stomach tugged urgently, he knew her, knew her face. He opened his mouth several times to speak before anything came out.

"Anya?" He whispered, his gun slowly drifting further from the mark. Her eyes lolled around in her skull as though it took great effort to do so, they finally focused on him briefly. No emotion registered on her face and she said nothing. The man caught his attention again, he stooped low and went for his hand gun that had fallen beneath the bed. He tried to focus and brought his rifle up.

"Leave it, face me like a man." He barked at him. The man turned with a smile and the gun held up in his hand, though not pointed at Gabe.

"I'm sure we can work something out. This an old girlfriend of yours? Maybe I can get you two reintroduced, she's pretty…cooperative these days." He grinned in a way that suggested he had taken full advantage of that. He almost fired then but Anya came flying up at him, her hands fell around his throat, punching wildly. It wasn't until the first wounds started bleeding that he noticed she had picked up the broken shards of glass from the bottle and were plunging them into the man. He fell under her onslaught and she carved a piece of his face down to the bone. He screamed while trying to push her away but she fell on top of him, finally dragging the glass across his throat, blood sprayed out wildly. He brought his hand up and closed around her throat, squeezing with all his strength but he had lost too much blood already and after only a moment his grip loosened and fell to his side.

Gabe stood there shaking, unable to move. Anya crawled off the man, gasping to regain her breath and covered in blood. She dropped the glass pieces to the ground and he noticed her hands and wrists were cut badly, bleeding profusely. He dropped the gun and knelt next to her, trying to staunch the blood that pulsed out of her so quickly.

"Gabe," She said, a small smile stretched across her gaunt face. "Though you were dead."


	9. Chapter 9

Sweat poured down his forehead, the urge to wipe it away was maddening but he certainly couldn't take the time to stop and do it. He adjusted Anya in his arms again, her bones pressing painfully against his aching arms. What has started as a minor hinderence now seemed like an extra four hundred pound mirelurk.. Two days trekking the wastes with little to no stopping had tested the very limits of his endurance. He could feel himself creeping toward the edge, almost about to break. He just had to make the hill, he knew he could get there if he just got to the hill.

He slowed his steps with a sigh and came to a stop, the monstrous hill looming above him, providing some shade. He had to rest here, he'd collapse if he tried the hill at a run right now. He knew he could do it though, because after that, it was a little less than a mile to the town gates. He was almost there. He checked Anya's pulse again to make sure her heart was still beating. She hadn't opened her eyes since early that morning, her breathing shallow and her face gaunt. She didn't look like she had eaten much in weeks, her arms were thin and her bones jutted out awkwardly. She also hadn't recovered from all the blood she had lost when she attacked the man, he had misjudged her injuries as the bandages he wrapped her in were now stained crimson. The real problem was the jet, she seemed to be withdrawing hard. Hard enough to suddenly start convulsing in his arms without waking, he'd never seen anyone this bad, and he'd been around a lot of junkies, had been one himself for a while.

He gulped water down, spilling over his throat and chest but he didn't care. It was a welcome cool from the hot summer sun. He stooped and dribbled water into Anya's open mouth while he chewed down a chalky protein bar. She still swallowed as he poured so he hoped that was a good sign. Groaning as he stood up, he stretched his seized muscles. The hill still loomed before him, laughing at him. He could feel himself getting weaker as he stared up at it.

Rustling through his pack he pulled out an old dusty bottle. The remnants of the label could still be read clearly as buffout, he shook the bottle and it rattled, nearly empty. He twisted off the cap and dropped two into his hand, after hesitating for only a moment he popped them into his mouth and chased it with another gulp of water. He stuffed everything back into his pack and tore a strip from his sleeve to tie around his forehead, hoping that it would stop the worst of the sweat from dripping into his eyes. He could already feel the buffout pumping through his blood stream, feel his muscles humming for movement. He strapped his bag across his back and hoisted Anya up in his arms again. Her head lolled around on its axis but there was no sign of her waking.

Everything ached but he didn't feel it as sharply as before, his exhaustion was suddenly pushed back by a false jolt of energy. It took all his will power not to sprint up the hill, the drugs would convince him that he could fly up the hill but he'd burn through them before he'd actually reached Vertville. He needed the endurance, if he could pace himself he knew he could make it.

He was already sweating profusely halfway up the hill, the ground was steep and unsteady. Every two steps forward had him sliding halfway back, the effort of it nearly sapping the false strength of the drugs. But he continued to surge on, determined to crest the hill. When he finally did it was into the full force of the sun, he blinked fiercely in the blinding light. And then there it was, glittering in the distance, the metal walls of home, calling him back.

He nearly started to run once he reached flat ground, knowing that he could eat up the distance quickly now. But he resisted the urge, knowing that once the buffout was gone, he would be too. He settled on a half trot, jostling the girl in his arms. Before he had even reached the short road that lead to the entrance gate he started shouting, hollering for the guards.

"Open the gates!" He shouted. "Open the fucking gates!" His throat strained to gasp in the air he needed while bellowing loudly. It would be just like the guards to jerk him around with their 'security measures' when he really needed in. He could see movement at the top of the wall, men shuffling, struggling to recognize the madman who was shouting at the gates. He started to cross the makeshift moat, the doors still had not moved. "I need medical attention. OPEN THE GATES!" He crossed and stood in front of the metal doors, struggling not to drop Anya and start smashing his fists against the gate. They'd never let him in if he completely lost it, but it was hard to control himself when the buffout was still pumping through his veins. He finally heard the chains groaning and the doors moved, they raised to reveal twelve guards standing in formation with rifles pointed directly at his chest, and Fisher standing at the head of them.

Fisher held his hand up for Gabe to wait, he could feel his blood drumming in his ears, anger surged through him briefly before he reminded himself that this was Fisher coming out to greet him. He was still trying to jog despite his bum leg that swung around awkwardly.

"Oh my." Fisher's eyes grew wide at Gabe's appearance, and then the woman laying in his arms. It hadn't occurred to Gabe that they were both covered in blood, sweat, and filth. They probably had better looking ghouls who came through town.

Fisher turned back the guards and started to run back the way he came. "Call the doc, get out of the way. Get out of the way, boy!" He shoved one of the slower moving guards bodily. Gabe followed closely in his wake, eyeing all of the men dangerously, daring them to interfere. They clearly had been sent to make sure that Gabe wasn't going to be a problem, but were unsure how to react with Fisher shouting out his own orders now. "Don't you see this girl? We need a medic!" Fisher grabbed one of the younger fellows by his jacket. "You go get Doc Kosh right god damn now. You tell him to come down to the café. You got that?" Fisher glared into the young man's eyes until he nodded eagerly and then released him, he took off running for the large compound at the far end of town.

"Fisher…" One of the guards stepped forward, blocking his progress with an arm. Fisher swatted it away irritably.

"You go get some stimpacks from the tower. I know you got em. The next time someone brings a dying girl to the gate, open the fucking doors." He shoved past him and beckoned Gabe to follow. Fisher's rage had momentarily shocked Gabe into a stupor, but he recovered quickly and followed. Neither of them looked back to see if the guards still had their guns aimed at their backs. They just ran as quickly as they could to the café.

* * *

Heather chewed her lip nervously, standing in the kitchen, unsure of what to do. Most of the regulars had cleared out after Fisher had been called on. There was some kind of fuss out front to do with Gabe, they said he was screaming and covered in blood, like he had gone on some sort of killing spree. Course, that could have been utter brahmin shit, but something was going on, and it wasn't good. Some had taken off to see what they could, and the others left because they didn't want to be around when Gabe returned, if he did. People were already afraid of him and his aloof manner without hearing stories about him covered in blood. There was a lump in the pit of her stomach that she had to fight down to prevent her from running to the gates with the rest of them.

They both burst through the doors not more than five minutes after Fisher had been called out. Gabe looked like he had bathed in blood and there was a twitching body in his arms that looked much the same. She wanted to shrink back but was unable to get her feet unglued from where they had rooted. They came to the counter and knocked everything clear, laying the body down. Her eyes grew wide then, it was a woman, though it was hard to tell in the usual way, she was so wasted she looked as though she might break. Her skin was pale and sickly, and her hands and wrists were wrapped tightly in bloody cloth. When Fisher pulled up her eyelids to try and rouse her they were rolled back in her skull like some kind of nightmare.

Gabe leaned against the counter heavily, trying to catch his breath, his chest heaving and his eyes darted about oddly. He didn't look like himself, he looked twitchy. Fisher tossed him a bottle of water from below and he drank it greedily in between breaths.

"What can I do?" She heard the words spill out before she had realized she was speaking. Fisher looked like he was startled, as though he hadn't even realized Heather had been there at all. He recovered quickly though.

"Water, boil some water. I'll need some clean bandages." She nodded quickly and grabbed the biggest pot they had, not sure of how much water they needed but afraid to ask. Her shaking hands twisted the spigot and let water splash into the pot and then turned to grab their meager first aid kid from the back shelf.

The woman started to thrash then, her bony body bouncing against the hard counter, Gabe struggled to hold her down. "Fisher-" Gabe started, his eyes had a wild kind of desperateness in them. It wasn't something Heather had ever seen, he had always been a rock, but the man she knew looked completely out of control right now.

"Just a seizure. It's alright, she's going to get help. We just need to hang in there." Fisher patted Gabe's shoulder, he spoke slowly and firmly like he would to a frightened brahmin. Gabe nodded like he heard the words, but the frantic urgency didn't leave his eyes.

The guard showed up with some bandages and stimpacks at the same time that Dr. Kosh arrived. The doctor looked irritated to have been summoned away from his own clinic, but Fisher didn't think Gabe could have carried the girl much further. Kosh took one look at the girl on the table and his face changed, he ignored the others and set to work on the girl.

"This one will need stitches, I think the other should be fine, though she's got a lump here, any broken bones recently?" He asked after he had poked and prodded her sufficiently. He looked around at the three of them, but they all looked to Gabe who just shook his head miserably.

"I don't know. Her arm was wrapped like they were trying to mend it." The doctor dismissed his answer and carefully twisted the arm about until he was satisfied with his own answer.

"Staining of the teeth, dry cracked lips, junkie?" He directed the question to Gabe with a raised eyebrow.

"They said she was doped up by the gang most of the time."

Kosh nodded. "Some pretty severe withdrawal then. If she's lost a lot of blood we'll try and mend that first, deal with the withdrawal later." He took out his pack of needles and set to sanitizing them and began to wash away the blood and dirt from her torn hands and wrists.

"Is that really a good idea?" Gabe asked shakily taking handfuls of the bloody bandages from the counter to the trash. Heather dumped fresh bandages into the boiling water, making sure everything was extra sanitary.

"No, but it's better than the alternative." Kosh went digging through his satchel and produced a small inhaler. Heather recognized it quickly, jet, the man meant to dope her up.

"What's the alternative?" Gabe's voice was quiet, almost weak. Heather felt herself shiver at seeing him brought so low, so afraid. Her mouth was dry and she couldn't do anything but stare as the doctor pinched the girls nose closed and pressed the inhaler to her lips. The effect was almost immediate, her posture on the counter was relaxed, and the constant shivering subsided.

"The alternative is death."

* * *

The stitches in her arm didn't look too bad from this distance, though the sheer number of them was a little alarming. Gabe watched from the doorway of his own room, having been banished along with the rest of them. Heather was the only one allowed to assist and for a while they had closed the door completely. Kosh was just finishing up now, re-wrapping the bandages around her hands so it looked as though she had stumps instead of hands. Her left arm was also splinted to keep it steady. Heather exited the room with a basket full of bloody towels and bleach, she paused at the door, looking as though she wanted to say something, but Gabe ignored her completely and she moved on. The buffout was fading from his system quickly, staying awake was starting to become a challenge as the last two days was catching up to him all at once. Fisher had insisted on him having a shower, mentioning that he smelled and looked like death. He had agreed, but had emerged three minutes later, clean enough that Fisher couldn't complain, but back outside the door, waiting.

Kosher finally packed up his bag, adjusting the few IV's he had set up on the wall, blood, water, and what Gabe assumed was some kind of supplement for food. Gabe stood up straighter then, ready to bombard the man with questions but Kosh turned a stern eye to Gabe and he felt himself wilt a little, daring to ask only one.

"She going to be alright?" His voice verged on desperation. Kosh looked back on the still form lying on the bed, he shrugged with a short gesture.

"Maybe. Looks like she went into shock trying to deal with the blood loss, withdrawal, and severe starvation and dehydration. The exposure wasn't much good for her either." Gabe flinched a little at that. He hadn't thought to protect her on the trip back, he had only been thinking of how fast he could make the journey. " On top of that, looks like she's been using heavily for quite a while, it's pretty rough on the body in that manner. I'm coming by in the morning. She's either strong enough to pull through or she isn't."

The finality of his words felt like a hot poker in Gabe's gut. With his teeth clenched he felt himself nod as though he understood. He really wanted to scream at the man, shake a better answer out of him, force him to make her better right then. The waiting was what was going to make him mad, nothing to do but wait. He felt his edges fraying.

"If she starts to go, come find me, I might be able to ease her passing. I've left another bag of blood in the cooler, when this one is through, go ahead and give her the next." He handed a wrinkled paper to Gabe, "I've told Heather how to do it, but that'll tell you how to do it." Gabe stared at it blankly, unable to comprehend what it said. "You the father?" His voice had turned steely, so much so that Gabe was forced to look up at the man, catching his eye.

"The what?" He hadn't really been paying attention before, his tone suggested he should start listening again. The words hadn't quite made sense to him.

"Are you the father? She's pregnant."

"I…"A heavy weight dropped in his gut, he had a hard time opening his mouth again. He felt the anger rise up like bile in the back of his throat. "No…no I'm not." He finally managed, realizing that Kosh was still waiting for an answer from him.

"Do you know who is?"

Gabe swallowed uncomfortably and shook his head. "I think she'd been…" He couldn't quite make himself finish the sentence. All he could see was the face of that man, leering at him from the hut, he hadn't even gotten a chance to shook him.

"Raped?" Kosh supplied, a shift in his tone suggested he was relieved to hear Gabe wasn't a part of it, Gabe had hardly noticed. "Yeah, it looked that way. Looks like she's been roughed up for quite a while now. Slavers?"

Gabe nodded. "At least I think so, they didn't seem to be doing much trading." He wished he had gotten a shot at the man now, wish he had bothered to stab his dagger deep into his belly and swirl it around, just to see the pain in his eyes as he died. They stood there in an awkward silence, he wasn't sure what the doctor was feeling, his own rage was bubbling within, barely contained.

"Did you get the bastard?" Kosh finally asked, his tone surprisingly unsympathetic.

Gabe allowed himself a snort. "No, actually she did." The stabbing had seemed violent at the time but now he was a little surprised she hadn't cut off his balls and fed them to the man. Kosh gave the girl an appraising sort of look.

"Good for her." He gave a nod. "I've got two stimpacks next to the bed here. And that blood pack downstairs. Try not to use the stims, it'll be better for the fetus if we use fewer chems to heal her."

"You want her to keep it?" Gabe tried to hide the incredulity from his voice but failed.

The doctor turned to him and shrugged. "I just want her to have a choice, doesn't seem to me that she's been given one of those in a long while." Kosh turned and walked down the stairs.

He couldn't argue with the man, a baby was just a baby, no matter how violent the conception had been. He didn't know this girl any more, couldn't know what she would want, so he would try his best not to pass judgment before she even had the opportunity. He sat in the rickety chair next to the bed, leaning gratefully against the desk, determined to keep watch while she slept. His eyes had glued themselves shut before Heather came back to check on the bag.


	10. Chapter 10

Gabe woke with a start, realizing he hadn't meant to doze off. The sudden flinch caused all of his muscles to scream out at once and he sagged back into the chair with a groan. He hissed through his teeth, trying to adjust everything slowly so that it wouldn't ache quite so badly as he sat there. He then became very aware that he was being watched. His eyes shifted to the bed where Anya lay, her eyes were glazed over but they were definitely open.

"Hey." He offered weakly, trying to smile, he doubted it was a reassuring one. Her blank gaze seemed to penetrate into him, making him feel uncomfortably scrutinized. He finally had to look away under the pressure of that gaze, busied himself with getting a glass of water on the desk nearby.

"Where am I?" He voice was weak and her mouth moved slowly as though relaying the question from the deepest recesses of her mind.

"Vertville," He finally spoke up. "You're in Vertville, you're safe here." He added at the end to try and assure her.

A small smile spread across her face, her lips were dried and cracked and it was painful to see her stretch them, but he was somewhat glad that she had the energy to try. "No one is safe." In the dark corners of her eyes he could swear he saw a glimmer of the young girl he once knew, she was teasing him. The smirk faded from her face and she watched him seriously with those unnerving gray eyes. "You rescued me." Her tone was solemn again.

He gave a quick laugh. "You look like you rescued yourself."

She half grinned and looked down at her own hands, as though just now remembering what had happened. She didn't quite have the strength to lift her wrist more than an inch off the bed, and the other was splinted and strapped closed to her side to prevent it's movement. But the thick gauze was enough evidence to remind her of the vicious damage that was hidden beneath. "Never gave me a weapon before," She mused to herself, almost forgetting Gabe was there at all. "Or I was too strung out to notice." She shrugged and looked at him again, that brief glimpse of clarity was there again. "Still, thank you, Gabriel."

He finally nodded but didn't say anything, he offered her the glass of water he had prepared and helped her sip from it.

"It's nice to see you again." She said when she had had enough to drink. Her words caught him by surprise but he felt himself grin.

"I'm glad to see you, as well. I had thought the worst for so long…" He cringed as he looked into her eyes, suddenly wondering if her dying really would have been the worst. The things she had had to endure, the things she might still have to endure. He thought about the unborn child then, the weight of it was crushing.

"What? What is it?" His emotions were so obvious that an emaciated junkie could see he was bothered.

"I…I'm glad you're okay…" He briefly considered lying to her, letting the doctor break the news to her, he wouldn't have to be the one to tell her. To bring that nightmare back into her life so quickly after she had thought to escape it. He couldn't though, it wasn't fair to her to let a stranger have to break the news. And he couldn't look at her and feed her some bullshit without hating himself. "But the doctor had a look," He crushed his hands together nervously, his eyes darted from the floor to her face and back again. "He um-" He let out a sigh and tried to calm himself, determined to spit it out. "You're…pregnant." He said, the regret evident in his tone.

She stared at him a moment as if she hadn't heard the words, but she was very still. He watched her and worried he would have to repeat himself.

"Oh," She finally squeaked out, the same petrified look on her face.

* * *

Anya waited quietly while Heather finished redressing her bandages, Heather humming a tune to herself. She had been able to get a better look at the damage that was causing her throbbing pain. The flesh on her palms looked like a broken glass that had been put back together like a puzzle. She was relieved when the angry red flesh disappeared beneath the gauze again, it was frightening to see how much she had hurt herself.

She closed her eyes and remembered the elation that had rushed through her when she stabbed Mal. It was such a powerful feeling that it had surged past the drug muddled zone she had been drifting in when Gabriel had appeared. The thrill of causing Mal so much pain after he had caused so much of hers was a drug all its own. She hadn't anticipated living through it, the opportunity had presented itself so suddenly she had just reacted, already having made peace with the bullet to the brain she was likely to receive. She didn't know Mal would have been so distracted by the newcomer that he couldn't fight her off, hadn't been expecting to able to kill him. She didn't regret it, she sensed something that was close to pride swelling up in her, knowing she had killed that man, that monster. She shuddered a little, he was gone and she was free.

"You alright?" Heather asked cautiously, just now noticing her closed her eyes, her face was an expression of concern.

"Yes," She smiled, it was easier to communicate now, she was on fewer sedatives than when she had first woken, and slightly less jet. "Thank you for changing the bandages for me."

"Oh don't be silly," Heather shushed her with a wave of her hand. "It was no trouble." Heather had an easy smile and she found herself liking the woman. "Musta found yourself in some kinda trouble out there. Never seen Gabe act so crazy in all my life. So, are you a wanderer like him?" She asked nonchalantly as she finished off the gauze and secured the ends tightly. Anya tried to hold back the grin as she watched how carefully Heather tried to not look interested. Gabriel had always been the closed mouth sort, she doubted he had said anything. She self consciously pressed her free hand against her stomach, remembering what he had last said to her.

"No," She started, she didn't think she really wanted to talk about it, but she didn't want to be rude to Heather either, especially after how kindly she had treated her. Just some banged up junkie from the wastes and Heather hadn't anything but kind words and a sweet smile to offer. She tried to think of how she could put it delicately. "I was mixed up with some slavers."

Heather's face darkened a little then, she nodded with understanding. "Same thing with my sister, some years back now. It's just rotten what those men can get away with out in the wastes. You're lucky to be here." She reassured Anya with a squeeze on her shoulder.

"I was lucky Gabriel found me." Anya said, feeling the truth of it hit her like a weight.

"Well ain't that funny." Heather smirked with the corner of her mouth. "I never knew that was his name." She started to pick up the spare rags from the bed and gather them into her basket. "He's a bit closed off some times, or I guess just with some people." The tone she gave was meant to make light, but her eyes suggested that she was hurt.

"Oh, I doubt that's it. We just grew up in the same place." She wanted to protect Heather's feelings.

"Oh neat!" She seemed extra interested now. "Gabe never says anything about his home. I bet you guys have all sorts of catching up to do. It'll do you both some good to reminisce about happier times, I'm just sure of it-" Her grin slowly dropped when she turned and saw Anya's eyes had sprung full of tears, half a sob escaped her through when she saw Heather had caught her. "Oh! Oh, I'm so sorry Anya! I've got such a stupid mouth!" Heather's hands flew to her face as though she could stop the words that had already escaped. Anya tried to open her mouth to explain but she couldn't control herself and the sob she had been holding in her chest burst out and she dissolved into tears.

Heather stooped down next to her on the bed and pulled her into an embrace. "It's okay, it's okay." She stroked the back of Anya's head and she was caught off guard at this small kindness. She let herself be held and the tears fell unrestrained, unloading the burden that was clutched tight in her chest. The sobs finally begain to subside and she was surprised to feel relief after it all. She pulled back to try and wipe away some of the tears and snot that was trailing messily down her face.

"Here, let me get that." Heather grabbed some of the loose bandages from her basket and wiped at her face. "Don't want to soggy up those new bandages, otherwise that blabbermouth nurse will have to come back and fix them." She gave a hesitant grin at Anya's puffy face and Anya gave a shakey laugh despite herself.

"I'm sorry I fell apart, I didn't know…" She sniffed, taking a moment to be sure she had herself under control again. "I guess I didn't know I could still be so sad about it, after everything else." She shrugged with a soggy grin but kept her composure. "I'm sorry Heather-"

"What's wrong?" Gabriel had appeared in the door frame and his face was filled with alarm. Heather flushed crimson as she turned and found him standing there.

"I'm sorry Gabe, I upset her-"

"No, it's alright," Anya tried her best not to cringe in pain when she reached out to touch Heather's arm. "Really, I'm fine." She insisted. "I'm just a little unhinged after everything." She gave a weak smile and Gabriel seemed to understand that, his posture relaxed.

"I'll just take this down to the trash." Heather said awkwardly, gathering up her clutter and walking quickly to the door. Gabe spared her a quick glance and stepped out of the way.

"Thank you, Heather. It really was nice talking to you." Anya called after her, Heather turned and gave her a small smile of appreciation and ducked out of the room. Gabe watched her go from the corner of his eye and then returned his focus to Anya.

"Is it alright if I come in?"

"Don't be silly, if course it is. There's still no reason I can't be sleeping downstairs instead of you."

"If you slept on the floor, you'd break." He said bluntly as he walked into the room. He settled in the chair next to the bed and eyed her puffy face again. "Are you sure you're okay?"

She nodded, swallowing back the lump in her throat. "She just mentioned home," She gave a quick bitter smile. "It was so long ago, I didn't realize I still needed to mourn."

He nodded but the blank look on his face suggested he had shut out thoughts of Cale long ago. "I'm sorry I never looked for you." He said in a hollow tone. "I thought you were dead."

"There's nothing to apologize for," She gave half a laugh, it surprised her how easily she could slide back into having a conversation. "Of the two of us, you're the one that should be dead." Gabe smirked a little bitterly and rubbed at his shoulder where the scar still remained.

"Still," He shrugged and left it at that. He pulled a fresh inhaler from his pocket and placed it on the table for her. He was surprised to see her shake her head violently.

"No, I'm off it. It's kept me dumbed down long enough."

"Anya," He sighed, they had already had the argument yesterday, along with recovering she was gaining stubbornness. "It's keeping you stable right now, I don't think it's a good idea to see if you can handle the withdrawal." He insisted.

She knew what it felt like, could already feel the craving clawing at her belly as the last dose faded from her system. She wanted it, needed it so badly. First the shakes would start, the sweats, the fever, and a whole mess of more unpleasant symptoms. She had experienced it a few times when Mal's gang had run low on funds, and jet. She pressed her lips together, determined to ignore that inner voice.

"I…I just can't." She pushed the inhaler away. "At least let me lower the doses, I can't be out of control like I was. Please Gabriel." She pleaded with him, her hand trembled as it released the inhaler, her own body trying to betray her decision.

He took the inhaler back with a pained smile on his face. "Nobody calls me that." He twirled the inhaler in his hands.

"I'm sorry, Heather said-" He interrupted her with a wave.

"No, I don't mind. I just never told anyone here." He shrugged. "Thought if I shortened it, maybe it would help me forget, help get rid of the dreams. It never did though, dunno why I bothered."

"Dreams?" She peered at him curiously and suddenly his eyes dropped to focus intently on the inhaler in his hand.

"Yeah, of home." He said quickly, flipping the inhaler around in his hands as though it fascinated him. "I heard there's doctors out there who can cure addiction, wipe it clean out of your system. Kosh is more of a dabbler in medicine, but I'll ask him about reducing the dose." He did level her with a gaze then. "But you'll listen to what he says about doses, cold turkey kills folks who are healthier than you." She nodded reluctantly, worried that her agreement had more to do with her desire to get it into her system again than concern about her own health. "I'll see who Fisher knows and maybe when you get a bit stronger we can get that taken care of."

"That'd be great." She let out a shaky breath. She knew it was just a matter of time before she would be seduced by the drug, looking for another quick high and escape from reality. She shivered just from thinking of the rush she got when she sucked it into her lungs. "Thanks, Gabe."

He grinned. "Maybe you should call me Gabriel, for old times sake. And I can call you Anastasia."

She shook her head with a sad grin and chuckled. "No, please no, Phil only called me that when I was in trouble."

"Then I guess you better stay out of trouble." He smirked at her.

* * *

He woke abruptly in the night, her screaming voice just fading from his ears. He leapt out of bed and launched himself up the stairs two at a time till he reached his door. He pushed the door wide with a shaky hand and the light from the hall spilled in, falling across the bed. He ducked his head in just far enough so that he could see her sleeping form. She was on her side with her back to him, the splinted arm resting in her hip. He watched until he was sure he could see her chest rising with each breath. She was fine, completely fine. He sagged as he let out a breath, feeling suddenly very stupid. He closed the door carefully, now mindful of each noise he made, worried he might get caught. As he returned it to the original position he turned to find the stairs and instead found himself face to face with Heather.

He stared at her mutely, in her arms a bottle of water and a loaf of bread in a basket. It would be just like Heather to worry about someone waking in the night starving and have no idea where to get some food. He opened his mouth to speak but he couldn't manage to get any words out. He felt his face flush and was grateful for the dim hall lighting that hopefully disguised the worse of his embarrassment.

"She's the girl from the dream, isn't she?" Heather finally spoke hesitantly. His look of confusion made her clarify. "Heard ya again. I was already up and about in the kitchens, you ran right past."

"Yes, she is." He scratched the back of his neck, trying his best not to make eye contact with Heather if he could avoid it. He was at least grateful that he didn't have to come up with an excuse to explain why he was creeping up to the room to spy on her, nothing he could come up with had sounded good.

She smiled sympathetically. "She's okay, Gabe. She really is. She might not look it, but she's strong. I heard Kosh just this morning saying how she was coming along much better than he expected. You saved her. She ain't dead."

"Yeah," He squeezed the back of his neck anxiously. "Old habits." He said with a grimace. "Thanks for being such a help, Heather." He motioned to the basket in her arms.

"Sure thing," She flashed her easy grin. "Now for goodness sake, go dream about something nice for once. You did real good bringing her here. She's going to be alright." And she shooed him back down the stairs while she went to put the food in the room.

He tried to take her words to heart, but it was going to be difficult to change. For so long he had been blaming himself for her death, he had been so brash fighting like that, a young fool. It was still a bit of a shock to realize that she wasn't dead, she was very much alive. She was sleeping directly above him, a little worse for wear, but so was everyone who survived in the wastes.

He didn't think the dreams would go away though, now he felt like he had to protect her, to keep her safe from whatever other horrors the wastes might have to offer. He thought that was only natural, wanting to keep an old friend safe. It probably wasn't expected that he would leap from bed to check up on her every time he had a nightmare though. He would have to work on that second part.


	11. Chapter 11

"It's a little less than a week of travel; we can hitch along with the next set of traders that comes through town. They move pretty slow and they've always got a merc on hand. A little cap exchange and they'll make us feel right at home." Fisher pointed down at a crudely sketched map of their location. She could see where Vertville was underlined and several long roads leading out. The nearest one ended at another underlined city, Megaton. She also couldn't help but notice a freshly drawn in image of a green tree, just a little north of them. She flinched as something inside of her recognized the place she had been found, even if it were just an image on a map.

"If the trader sticks to the main road, you shouldn't need the merc." Gabe looked down at the map with a frown. "Though if you took this road here, you'd cut your trip by more than a day."

"You aren't coming?" Anya caught his gaze questioningly. The thought alarmed her a little, she had gotten to know Fisher and liked him well enough, but Gabe felt like an old friend, he felt like home, as silly as that sounded even to her.

"Wouldn't have to hitch with any cap thieving traders if ya did." Fisher eyed Gabe too, apparently disappointed that Gabe wasn't coming for his own reasons. Fisher was far from an old man, but he certainly wasn't young any more. Anya suspected her own weakness was the cause for Fisher's alarm, traveling across the wastes with a sickly woman was by no means going to be easy.

"Well…" Gabe stuttered, apparently not expecting the both of them to gang up. "I thought with you gone the shop," The attention of both of them was clearly too much and he struggled to think of what else to say.

"Well, if you need time with Heather, just say so." Fisher waved his hand in the air with a shrug.

"No," Gabe said a little more firmly than necessary. "I'm sure she can handle the shop herself. Much better than the two of you would handle travel by yourselves." He sat himself down at the table now, an active participant as opposed to a guide. "We can leave tomorrow if it's not too much of a bother. We can cut across here and here," He pointed both points out on the map of his complicated road systems. Anya noticed how quickly he was to change the subject from Heather but she pushed it to the back of her mind. It was hard enough to focus, even on the limited jet she was taking, she didn't need to stretch her thoughts any further than what was right in front of her.

Kosh had insisted on continuing to administer doses of jet into her system after a poor experience in withdrawal had reared its ugly head and pushed her recovery back a few days. By then Gabe had found the man they were looking for and promised that they would get her to the medic in Megaton who would be able to cure her addiction.

It had taken a while for Kosh to give her an okay for travel, which had been frustratingly agonizing. To keep her impatience at bay, Gabe had brought her some old junk he hadn't sold off yet. It was slow going, but she slowly started to remember the way things went, the tools slowly started to feel familiar. She had even managed to fix the juke box that Fisher had put in his café just because he thought it added to the feel. Now Gabe was on strict orders to bring back any records he could find in the wastes and the patrons were so excited about choosing a song none of them questioned her too hard about where she had suddenly come from. The acceptance was good, but the most reassuring thing was getting the hang of the tools again, it made her feel like somewhere deep inside, she was still that same girl who lived with her uncle, fixing mechanics up. Still a whole human being, even if it didn't feel like it sometimes.

* * *

"Not more than another day south, I'd say." Fisher stretched and stamped out the small fire they had cooked up their breakfast on. They were in a beaten down old home that had one full wall remaining and an attic with a floor solid enough to sleep on. It was almost a whole neighborhood but the rest of the buildings seemed to have fallen and crumbled to the ground.

"I didn't know you'd been to Megaton." Gabe said eyeing the old man curiously.

"I've been lots of placed." Fisher snapped a little curtly. Gabe just shrugged and continued to pack up his own bag. Fisher and Gabe had been splitting up the night watch, even though Anya insisted she was perfectly capable of serving one of the shifts. But they had both refused to let her share the burden, she knew it had everything to do with the jet. Now, progressively through the trip, Fisher was growing more irritable. She didn't blame him, she was feeling quite raw and she was getting the most sleep out of both of them. Gabe seemed little effected, it was almost irritating the way he seemed perpetually well rested every morning when it seemed to take every ounce of her being to get up off of her rolled out bed.

She did her best to make it up to them by cooking up meals for them, they hadn't packed much, a few tins of old food, but both Fisher and Gabe seemed pretty adept at tracking small game. Everything mostly ended up as a stew, it was the easiest way to stretch the food to make it last. Gabe had been wary of this initially; stew used up a lot of water, and that was something he was accustomed to struggling to find. Anya had found it pretty easy to maneuver them often enough that they had a plentiful supply without being too obvious.

She could feel the tug in her stomach, constantly urging her, it was easy enough to ignore, but she didn't want to. They were closing in on a large reservoir, she almost wanted to push on yesterday but she thought they might get suspicious if she insisted. She tried to hide her smile as they wandered out across the wastes in a single file; it was nice to know she wasn't completely useless to everyone, even if they didn't know it. There was a trail that wound up into some rocky terrain and she could sense that the water wasn't up on that trail, but down below it. They would pass it completely by if they climbed this hill.

"Gabriel," She called out quietly, he stopped and looked back over his shoulder. "Is it alright if we go around? I'm not sure I'm strong enough for that kind of a climb." She nodded her head up to the hill that was before them. It wasn't a small hill by any means, but it was certainly something she could probably manage. She had used this excuse several times on the trip already, but usually later in the day when they were ready to about stop. It was unlikely that she'd be tired already, but she doubted Gabriel was going to challenge her on it.

He watched her very carefully then, almost suspiciously. Fisher broke the silence behind her.

"That'll add two hours of walking," He said a little grumpily. Gabe broke his gaze with Anya for a moment to watch Fisher.

"Yeah, but it is a rough climb. Might as well go around, don't want to burn out this early in the day. Is it okay to go west?" His question was leveled at her again.

"Sure." Something flashed in his eyes that she didn't entirely trust, but she tried to shrug nonchalantly. "I guess."

"Come on Fisher," He smirked as he led them down around the rocky trail. "Maybe we'll find something on the way."

She didn't like how suggestive his tone was, or that smirk on his face, but she certainly couldn't argue with him now. The ground rose up around them and soon the sun was hidden behind the small foothills they were working to avoid. The shade of the hill was a relief from the unrelenting sun of the last few days and even Fisher seemed to appreciate the cooler weather and cheered considerably. They made excellent time and had reached the far base, she couldn't help but hurry, knowing her goal was almost at hand. She was nearly astride with Gabriel when he turned and looked at her over his shoulder.

"Hm," He said noncommittally. "Thought you were tired."

"Guess the shade was just the thing I needed." She shot back at him, aware of his smug tone.

"Sure sure," He nodded. "You've just been surprisingly weak this trip. You sure there wasn't another reason you wanted to avoid that hill?" He watched her carefully. "Maybe a reason you wanted to come this way instead?"

She was about to open her mouth to defend herself when a series of loud cracks caused them both to flinch. Gabe dropped to the ground followed immediately by herself.

"Raiders!" Fisher hissed from behind them, he was also pressing his face into the ground hoping to dodge any stray bullets coming this way. Gabriel shuffled the bag off his shoulders and pulled his rifle from his shoulders.

"Stay down. And stay here." He whispered to them both and squirmed his way down the trail and out of sight behind a boulder. She was definitely afraid, but she was more angry, she wasn't going to let them scare her any more, and she certainly wasn't going to let them hurt her friends. She stuffed her hand into Gabriel's bag and pulled out a heavy hand gun. She had gone out hunting twice with Fisher and Gabriel and they had let her practice shooting a few rounds. She might not be as good as Gabe, but she wasn't useless either.

"Anya," Fisher hissed at her. "He said to stay down!" He sounded alarmed as he noticed her crouching and making sure the gun was loaded.

"I'm not letting him go down there alone." She whispered back and made sure the safety was off. "I'll be fine." She flashed him a quick smile and followed the trail he had disappeared down. A few more shots echoed off the wall and she made her way cautiously, staying ducked low behind the rocks. She poked her head around and finally saw Gabe down lower using an old tree stump as cover while he fired into two raiders who were opposite a small pond that was fed by water that trickled down the side of the hill. The raiders didn't seem to have much aim as they showered bullets in the general direction that they needed to, but never with much accuracy. It looked like they had been camping here for a while, a small shelter was set up across the way, and broken cans and trash were strewn about.

Gabriel peppered a few shots across the path ahead and one of the raiders slumped down from view. The other fired wildly over their head and took off running, no honor amongst thieves. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw movement. Up in the steep cliffs someone had taken shelter. The raiders in front of them weren't meant to shoot him; they were just supposed to be a distraction until the woman reached higher ground.

Gabriel hadn't spotted her yet; he was too busy firing shots to chase the last raider away. As she raised her hunting rifle to her shoulder and took aim, he stood and at the last minute Anya cried out to warn him. He started to turn but the shot had already been fired, Anya was up and firing before she saw him fall back. Her aim wasn't pretty but she managed to focus enough of the shots into the woman's chest before she could retreat. She collapsed with a groan and slid down the hill like a sack of rocks.

Anya was shaking ever so slightly as she held the gun still in the air; she had managed to stop herself before she wasted all of the bullets. She slowly lowered her hands and took a deep breath, trying to relax.

"Anya," She turned to where Gabriel was laying, his fist pressed against his side and his teeth clenched together. "I thought I told you to stay put." He still managed to sound disapproving.

"Yeah," She smirked, "Fat lot of good that would have done." She dropped the handgun and knelt down next to him. There seemed to be quite a bit of blood pooling beneath him and she felt panic surge up from the pit of her stomach. She tried to reassure herself that if he was good enough to scold her, he was good enough to live.

"Fisher!" She called back over her shoulder. "Bring the packs, Gabriel's hurt!" She peeled up his jacket, ignoring him insisting that it was fine. The bullet had just shot through his side, feeling around to the back she found the exit wound. At least they wouldn't have to worry about fishing out the slug.

"It's fine." He repeated, he hissed out a slow breath as she tugged the jacket up to keep it away from the wound. "Leave it."

"You're bleeding quite a bit." She pulled her hands back cautiously; he tilted his face down a little to inspect the damage himself.

"Probably just a flesh wound." He leaned his head back against the stump again.

"Went and got yourself shot." Fisher came up just then, the two packs carried over his shoulders. His eyes were wide at the sight of all the blood.

"Yeah, sorry about that." Gabriel rolled his eyes and tried to settle more comfortable. "There's a stimpack in my bag, that should fix it up enough to keep going."

"Don't be silly," She picked through the bag and found the antiseptic and bandages that had been packed for her own wounds. "We can rest here for the day, there's already a camp set up. It was just luck that those raiders came across this place."

"Yeah. We were pretty lucky too." Gabe gave her that same suspicious look so she busied herself cleaning out the wound. She pressed a little harder than she needed to and she felt him flinch in response. That would be good enough to keep his mind focused on something else. She covered it up with gauze and taped it down as well as she could.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that." Gabe rolled his eyes and lay back again. "There's a stimpack in my bag that should fix it up good enough to keep going."

"Think I can get the stimpack now?" He sounded a bit annoyed to have been taken care of; it was clearly something he was used to doing himself. "Maybe you're too tired?"

She clenched her jaw and snatched the stimpack from Fisher's startled hands and stuck the needle in Gabriel's side and pressed down the plunger before he had time to grunt in pain. She pulled out the used syringe and tossed it to the ground.

"You're welcome." She glared at him and grabbed her pack from the ground. She turned on her heel and headed down toward the water to change out her now bloodied bandages.

Fisher watched her for a moment and then turned to Gabe. "What was that about?"

Color was returning to Gabe's face now as the stimpack was flowing through his blood stream and he let out a low breath. "Nothing, it's nothing." He lifted himself from the ground with a groan and watched her stooped down near the start of the stream that led into the pond.

"Young people," Fisher humphed and gathered up the mess they had left behind.

* * *

Anya fiddled with the dials on the portable radio that was laid out on a towel in front of her. She was hoping to get it working so they might enjoy some music on the way, but so far she had been too exhausted at night, and too busy with cooking to tinker with it at all. The issue seemed to be in the battery box, some frayed wires somewhere in the machine. She had pulled it all apart now, well rested and waiting for Fisher to return with something to cook up. She stayed far away from camp, not wanting to look Gabe in the eye quite yet, she had been a proper jerk but wasn't quite ready to admit it to him. Working with the radio was relaxing, as was the small stream that bubbled along past her feet; it was what fed into the pond down below.

She slowly began to reassemble the radio, finding the wires as she went and replacing them when she had something in her small pile of junk that worked, or finding a temporary fix that she hoped would work. She finally clicked the plastic casing back into place and flipped the power switch. A low hiss came on and she smiled slightly, the first hurtle was over. She pulled out the small antenna for the machine and started to spin the dial slowly the hissing fading to irregular noises, voices, music, she wasn't sure, but she was out of range for those signals. She continued to spin the dial until she nearly jumped at the loud voice of a DJ and spun the dial until it passed.

"Finally got that working?" Gabriel walked up behind her; she spared him a quick glance before returning her attention to the radio. She was still embarrassed but she certainly wasn't going to apologize to him, he had also been an ungrateful toad. She made a noncommittal grunt in response and he walked over to sit by her. He groaned as he hunched down and had to lean back on his arms to sit without clenching his teeth.

"Stimpacks aren't going to do much good if you insist on ripping the wound open like that." She commented as she lowered the volume and tried spinning the tuner back the way it had been.

"You're right. Seems that Fisher grabbed a super stim so it's nearly sealed up; doesn't stop it from hurting something fierce."

"Well, I'm sorry I wasted your time with all that bandaging then." She replied a little curtly, still spinning the dial. The clearest radio signal seemed to be someone called Three-Dog, reporting news and his own unusual anecdotes. She left it there and put the radio down, it was interesting to hear the news, she hadn't thought about the rest of the world in a very long time.

"Anya," He spoke gently, but the accusation was still there. He tried sitting up and succeeded but only with a grimace. "Don't be like that. I'm sorry I was rude before, you did good. I was just a little preoccupied with being shot; it's not like me to be so careless."

"Fair enough." She shrugged and they both listened to the radio in silence for a while the DJ's voice nearly drowning out the gentle flowing of water.

_Have you guys and gals ever seen...a tree? No, no, no! Not those shriveled-up black things! I'm talking real trees: brown bark, green leaves, photosynthesis, all that good stuff. Now what if I, the all-powerful Three Dog—bow wow wow—were to tell you that somewhere right here in the Capital Wasteland is a place with lots of trees? A veritable Oasis of green in that depressing sea of brown? Look, it was years ago—and I may have been experimenting with jet at the time—but I'm telling you; it's out there._

Anya twisted her hands uncomfortably and she heard Gabriel sigh.

"I'm guessing there aren't many of those around." He commented casually. "A bit odd really that your group of slavers found it. Kind of odd like how we keep running into water out here, clean water too, in a place that earned its name; the _wastes_." He gave her that same suspicious look he had given earlier, waiting for her to respond.

"Yes, it is odd." She finally responded, felt the anger bubbling up in her. "Lucky too, I guess. Seems to me you've been pretty lucky too. Living to tell the tale of a point blank shot to the chest and the annihilation of a small town; escaping slavers, junkies, and raiders. Traveling through the wastes on your own, surviving long enough to fall in with good people. Finding Fisher, and Heather." She said the last name pointedly; she couldn't help but sound bitter, even to herself. "I would have thought luck in the Wastes was just as uncommon as water." She leveled him with a stare, daring him to deny it. She was the one who had been enslaved, tortured, drugged, and raped. And that had gone on for years, how dare he be suspicious about the only piece of fortune she had had in all that time.

He seemed startled into silence by her comments, his face was blank as he opened his mouth, trying to speak, but closed it again, finally shaking his head.

"Oh Anastasia." He spoke quietly now and all the blame had died from his tone, just sadness. "The things I've done…" He couldn't quite meet her eyes any more. "Luckier than you, I suppose," He shrugged. "But not by very much."

She snorted her disbelief, but the way his shoulders sagged and he pointedly looked away from him eroded at her determination.

"The water, Anya." He finally spoke, and this time he did look at her. "How are you finding it? If there was a map one of the slavers had, I mean, we could come across another band of raiders, a bigger band; I can't keep you safe if I don't know what I'm up against. I don't want you to have to-" He wiped his hand across his face with a shaky sigh. "I just don't want that for you."

The concern in his voice formed a lump in her throat; she hadn't known he really cared, though maybe it was still just guilt from all those years ago. She swallowed carefully, she didn't want that, didn't want him thinking she was some fragile thing that needed protecting. She didn't want him constantly in fear for her safety, but she didn't want him to know the truth either. She would be labeled either way, a waif too fragile to trust, or some kind of wasteland freak, just like the ghouls. She just wanted to be his friend, she wanted one damn thing from her old life, that was it. She sighed, she supposed honesty was the best path here; she didn't want him worrying that they were going to run across a band of slavers anyway.

"It's not a map. There is no map. The slavers are just as blind out here as everyone else."

"Then how?" He looked at her curiously, she shrugged under the scrutiny.

"It's me. I don't know how it works, but I can feel the water. I thought it was just a weird stomach bug when I was little. The slavers," She was surprised by how it seemed each time she spoke about her horrible past, the pain seemed to ease; almost as though talking about it made it easier to do so. "They figured it out and kept me high to keep me finding water when I stopped trying to help. The cleaner it is, the stronger the tug is."

"Dowsing?" He asked, a little shocked. She was more surprised he knew the term; she had only heard it from the slavers. She still remembered his dead eyes on the side of that hill, his life pooling out of him moments after speaking the word.

"I had never really heard of it." She shrugged.

"I guess I've heard more rumors, a colony of people, calling themselves the Dowsers. They trade in clean water, but they move around, knowing the slavers are on the lookout for them. Water's almost as profitable as people. Some kind of mutation they think, that did it. I thought it was just a story though," He half laughed then. "Of course, I thought those trees were just a story too." She was a little relieved that he hadn't recoiled in horror, he almost didn't seem to be phased at all, but maybe he was just good at coping. He looked back at her, earnestly now. "Don't speak of it again. Whatever you do, keep it to yourself. Please."

"It'll be out little secret then?" She grinned at how silly it sounded, but Gabe's face was still serious.

"Please, if someone finds out. Even Fisher, mouths wag and it can end, well, badly."

"Alright, I promise. But you can't protect me forever."

He seemed satisfied at that with a little of the worry fading from his face. "Says who? Thanks for saving my skin, by the way."

She laughed a little, "Thanks for teaching me how to shoot again."

"Bah, I'm a terrible teacher. It was probably ole Phil and the practice that worked." She swallowed at the mention of Phil's name, which was still a fresh kind of hurt, remembering all she had really lost. But it felt good to remember something positive. "Phil was a good man."

"Yeah, he was." She smiled and he was able to return the reassuring smile.

"Hey now, where'd you all get off to?" Fisher's voice called down toward them, he had some kind of catch slung over his shoulder. "I caught us a nice fat mole rat to celebrate, and look at this, a bottle of wine I brought with. Too bad I'm here all by myself; have to drink the whole thing."

"Better get down there before he's too drunk to stand." Gabriel grinned and Anya stood up to help him get up off the ground without too much agony.

"Race you." She grinned and Gabriel just rolled his eyes as he hobbled along behind her.


	12. Chapter 12

The dusty old robot rolled up to them as they approached the imposing gate. Anya hadn't realized how huge it would be, the rust colored walls seemed to reach up far into the sky, higher than even the trees that had been at the Oasis. She had remembered very specifically being impressed by those, of course, she hadn't been in her right mind then. She cringed, just thinking about the jet made her want some again. She had done pretty well for the trip, all things considering, only had to take a few small hits, but the urge to use was still there, deeply latched onto her like a parasite. She was grateful Gabe had agreed to hold them for and didn't pester her about why. A sheen of sweat had started to cling to her clothing, shortly after she would start to tremble again. She hated how dependant she was and she was grateful that they had finally made it.

"Hello. Welcome to Megaton. I am Deputy Weld. Panhandling is not permitted."

"Well that's a friendly greeting." Gabe smirked at the machine as it rolled away to make a wide circle in the front of the gate. As they stood there, Fisher giving the robot the stink eye, a rather hobbled old man came stumbling up to them.

"Hey man, can you spare some water? I've been drinking nothing but irradiated crap for days. I can't keep it down. Please, do you have some fresh water you could spare?" His eyes were sunken deeply in his skull, he didn't look like he had eaten for days and his skin draped across his bones like thin paper.

"Don't they have clean water in town?" Gabe asked, the man flinched and it was easy to see why. Gabriel, well fed and well build was an intimidating force compared to the stringy beaten down looking man. But he recovered well enough when he realized it wasn't a rebuke.

"Didn't ya hear," He jabbed his thumb at Deputy Weld. "Ain't a charity sort of place, Megaton."

"Of course," Anya spoke, reaching into her pack to grab one of the several plastic bottles they had filled up at their last stop. The weight was starting to make her shoulders ache anyway.

"Thank you miss, god bless." He bobbed his head up and down as he accepted the bottle like it was a pile of caps. He wandered off a little ways, casting suspicious glances around him as if expecting someone else to come take it from him, before sitting down on a bare rock.

"I don't know if you should have done that." Gabe grunted.

"Why not? After all, we've been so _lucky_ with water, why shouldn't we share?" Gabe shot her a warning glance for her comment.

"He's right, honey, they're just vagabonds. They'll beg for anything other than a job." Fisher spit on the ground. "Taking away decent folks caps, ain't right."

Anya stared at the man's back as he slowly drank from the bottle, shivering in ecstasy as the clean beverage chased away the tangy flavor of whatever radiated puddle he had been drinking from. "We can't know that. We don't know what he's been through."

Both of the men looked a little sheepish at that, but Deputy Weld interrupted the awkward pause for them as he completed his circle again.

"Are you here for business? No panhandling." It waited a moment before slowly returning to its cycle.

"I get the feeling they have a problem with beggars," Gabe muttered out of the corner of his mouth and Anya stifled a laugh.

"Hey, tin man, why don't you go in there and tell that cowboy who's running the place that Fisher Simms is here to see him." Deputy Weld slowly turned back toward Fisher, acknowledging he had been heard.

"Certainly." The bot responded and started to roll back toward the gates of Megaton, entering through a small door. Fisher eyed the robot as it left, wondering how expensive something like that might be, and what kind of modifications he'd have to put on it to make it good at hunting mole rats.

"You know someone inside?" Gabe stared at him, openly curious now, he had thought it suspicious that Fisher had known whereabouts of Megaton, now this was further proof that he had been here before. Gabe suddenly realized that he didn't know anything about Fisher's past that wasn't in Vertville, and that realization was followed by a pang of guilt.

"Let's just say he's an old friend." Fisher was tightlipped and Gabe decided not to push it, it would probably come up sooner rather than later. They waited aimlessly in the desert heat, a dry breeze buffeting loose sand up against their unprotected faces. The groaning of the gates opening up was a welcome relief and a man stepped forward with the robot deputy behind him. He was dressed just like Fisher had pegged him, boots, hat, chaps, the man was a bone fide gunslinger from the old wild west.

"Fish?" He asked as he approached closer, tipping the rim of his hat back so he could see clearly. "That really you?" His face stretched into a slow grin and he quickened his pace when he appeared to recognize Fisher. Gabe noticed that they looked very similar, same dark skin, same sturdy frame, and he was pretty certain he had seen that same grin plastered on Fisher's face before. This newcomer had bits of gray flecking his beard, but there was little else to distinguish them as very different.

"Yeah Lucas. It's me." Fisher didn't seem quite as excited about the reunion. In fact, he seemed to be deliberately standoffish, his arms crossed on his chest and half a scowl on his face.

"Well come here ya big idiot!" Lucas didn't wait for an invitation but pulled Fisher into his arms for a hearty hug, thumping his back loud several times. "Jesus it's good to see you! Where you been?"

Fisher didn't totally warm up but Anya was relieved to see a small smile creep onto his face when Lucas finally released him and held him at arms length.

"I'm up in Vertville, got me a nice little café there."

"Hah!" The other man laughed heartily. "That ole rust pile? I remember the days they used to come all the way down here to scavenge for cars. Course, it's come a long way since then." He waved his hand in the air, dismissing such a long passage of time. "That's not so far though, why ain't you come to see me?"

Fisher's face sobered then, old resentment bubbling up. "You shot me last time, in case you forgot. Didn't think I was welcome back." Lucas' face fell a little as his own memories caught up with him.

"Hell Fish, you were a junky. And a criminal. What was I supposed to do?" He shrugged but his face was marked with remorse.

"I don't know Luke. I just didn't think it would come to shooting your own brother." Fisher shook his head slowly and crossed his arms once again. Determined again to be stubborn.

"Yeah, well. I was a little young and stupid back then too. Felt like I had to prove something. I'm sorry Fisher." He removed his hat and fiddled with the bill. "I shoulda helped you clean up, been a proper sibling to you. I know that now. I shoulda known it then." He rubbed his hand over the small patch on his scalp where the dark hair seemed to be receding. They both took in a deep breath and lost themselves briefly in their own thoughts.

"Thanks for saying so Luke." Fisher finally clapped him on the shoulder. "Bygones and such, yeah? It sure is good to see you."

"Sure is." His grin had reappeared and Fisher seemed to be in a lighter mood already. "Now, who are these fine folks you got with you?" He gestured with his hat toward Anya and Gabe before placing it back on his head. Even as their attention drifted toward her, Anya found her focus slipping, her nerves causing her to clench and unclench her teeth.

"This here is Gabriel, he's…" Fisher trailed off, searching for the diplomatic way to say exactly what he did. "he's a wastelander." He finished with a crooked smile, Gabe did his best to look polite. Lucas' eyebrows went up slightly, but he held his tongue and shook Gabe's hand when he offered it. "And Anya here, well, she needs to see your medic. She's got a problem that needs curing, and she's got a baby on the way, so she can't really afford to wait much longer." Anya wasn't sure if it was her twitching or general poor appearance that made it obvious she was a junkie, but Lucas didn't seem to need to ask for clarification. He gave her a knowing smile and shook her hand as well. Whatever judgments he seemed to have he kept to himself.

"Oh sure, Doc Church will fix her up fine." Lucas nodded politely as if they were discussing a bad cut instead of a jet addiction. "I'm sure you two will make mighty fine paren-" Fisher cut him off with an abrupt gesture that Lucas only caught halfway through his sentence. Gabe focused intently on the ground, pretending not to have heard. Anya found it was easy to look occupied with chewing away at one of her fingernails to avoid looking embarrassed.

"These two are just old friends, from when they were young." Fisher swallowed and lowered his voice slightly. "The baby is a result of more unfortunate circumstances, I'm afraid."

"Oh, well. I'm sorry to hear that." Lucas cleared his throat but recovered quickly and changed the subject. "We got plenty of space at my home to put you folks up. Church will probably have her out in less than a day, but you're welcome to stay longer. How bout we get miss Anya down to the clinic, and I'll buy you all a meal?"

"That'd be real nice." Fisher smiled again and they all followed him into town.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** **Holy god, I have neglected this guy. I've got a lot of stuff roughed out, so I really do plan on finishing it. I just re-edited my other fic on this site, and it was a real pain in the ass. So I'm going to skip that here, sorry for any typos in previous chapters. I'll get to them someday. Otherwise, I hope to get this going consistant again, and finished. So, sorry! For anyone who was annoyed. :D**

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It was a struggle to open her eyes, they felt so heavy and sleep kept tempting her back into the blackness. She thought she could lie there forever, but slowly the reality of the lumpy cot beneath her made her painfully aware of the aches in her body. Her bliss denied, she made the final push to rouse herself fully awake and managed a large yawn. As she breathed in deeply the smell of chemicals and sick cloistered her nostrils, making her a little dizzy as she propped herself up on her elbows. She recognized her surroundings as the clinic she had come into earlier in the day. It was darker now, less clean than she had originally thought, and the smell was almost enough to make her want to lie back to stop her head from spinning. Clearly the small amounts of jet she had still been taking had more of an effect than she thought. She pushed herself up, certain that if she could get in an upright position her mind would settle. She flinched once as she pulled her arm too far from the IV, the needle still inserted into her vein and taped down.

"You up?" Doc Church was sitting at his desk across the room, typing away at the computer. He had paused what he was doing and watched her over his spectacles, waiting for an answer. "Well? Feeling any better?" He said impatiently. Even off the jet she found that the medics manners had not improved any, which didn't really surprise her. He was a no-nonsense kind of man, and she supposed that made sense in his line of work. He seemed professional, and he hadn't asked any unnecessary questions, which she had appreciated.

She didn't answer right away, the spinning seemed to subside as she took steady breaths and she considered how she was really feeling. She was still pretty filthy, in dire need of some kind of bath, but that was nothing new. Her worrying about it was though, she didn't feel the sweats beading on her skin either, and there were no jitters at all. There was no desperate craving, no wondering when she was going to get her next hit. She felt a little groggy still, but that was the worst she could find to complain about.

"I feel fine." She said with a hesitant smile.

Church snorted. "Hope it's better than fine. That was an expensive cocktail your veins just sucked down." He stood from his desk and started to unhook the IV, pressing a bandage over the small wound when he was finished. She swallowed and a heavy pit landed in her stomach as she realized that she didn't have a cap to her name, not for a long time. She had been carelessly relying on the kindness of Gabriel and Fisher to get her through so far, no concerns for how it might have effected them. And before that, she had relied on the unkindness of slavers.

"Is there some work I might do for you, for payment?" She asked, slightly ashamed. It was unkind to accept the treatment without being able to pay, she knew that and wouldn't be surprised if he had her kicked out of town.

"Naw, that great lurking behemoth covered it for you." With his work done, he returned to his desk and waved her away. "Now off with you, that fella of yours probably sitting outside, and if I have to chase him out again I'm going to lose my patience and inject him with something he really isn't going to like." From most, Anya would consider that teasing, but from Doc Church, she believed he firmly meant it.

"He's not my fella." She frowned unhappily, yet another thing she owed them, and she had given nothing in return for Gabe's help. Doc just grunted noncommittally and continued his typing. Anya pushed herself up, taking a small experimental step to be sure she wouldn't just collapse as soon as she was too far to hold herself up. But despite being groggy, she didn't seem to too weak. "Thank you for your help." She offered before she headed out the door.

"Thanks for your patronage." He nodded once, he clearly wasn't in it for the warm feeling that healing brought him.

Stepping out into the sunshine was quite a shock, the dimness was only obvious now that she was in the full glare of the sun. She blinked several times, hiding in the shadow of her hand while her eyes started to water.

"Picked up some glasses in their junk shop, I broke my last pair over a week ago." Gabe was at her elbow, parked on a bench attached to the outside of the building. He was wearing a pair of darkened goggles himself, though he had pushed them up to his forehead. She hadn't noticed him suffering much under the glare of the sun and realized that he had probably gotten his own pair so it didn't look like he had gone out of his way to get one for her. She accepted them sheepishly and felt relief the instant they went on, the fit was a bit big for her face, but they blocked out the worst of the sun and that's what was important to her.

"Thanks," She gave a strained smile and inspected her surroundings more closely than she had before. They both stood on the raised porch of the clinic, and most everything looked like it was up off the ground, buildings connected by bridges and stairs, all the way up to the higher edges of the crater. Everything seemed to spread from the wet basin in the center, a large black bomb was planted in the middle, and a man stood caressing its side lovingly while others bathed in the water. She could feel the filth of the water as she watched them, knew they were killing themselves in that poisoned well.

Gabe followed her gaze, "I've heard they're a bit off. But harmless. Well." He corrected. "To others anyway. Come on," He tugged at her arm. "Fisher's down at the Brass Lantern, let's get a meal in you." He started to lead her away but she gripped his arm hard enough that he stopped.

"Gabriel, I…I can't afford to pay for any of this," She swallowed, she had already taken so much, she should have stopped them before, but she had been too blasted, wallowing so deep in her own despair that she hadn't cared. "And I can't pay you back yet." She wanted to promise she would, but what use was she? She had no idea if that was a promise she could keep. But Gabe only laughed at her.

"Anya, do you know how much water goes for? Real clean stuff? Cheaper here, I suppose, they've got a filter. But in some of the other settlements?" He shook his head. "Anya, I'm your friend, so of course you don't owe me anything." Anya felt herself flush a little as he said that. "But even if you did, you certainly paid your way. Please, don't worry about it." He seemed so earnest that she couldn't push the issue, she didn't want to insult him by refusing his suggestion that she could get a free pass for their friendship. But she didn't want to be a financial drag on him either.

"Alright," She smiled and let him lead her down to the Brass Lantern. Fisher was sitting inside, chatting up the barman, apparently quite popular now that it was common knowledge he was related to the towns own Sheriff Simms.

"Ah, there you are. Everything go alright?" Fisher nodded for them to sit and sipped from his cola.

"Yeah, I feel great." She smiled enthusiastically. "Thank you guys so much, I know this trip was a lot of trouble and I really appreciate it."

"Bah, not so much trouble." Fisher patted her hand amiably. "Bout time I got my old grizzled self out in the world again." He looked around at the empty tables surrounding them in the dingy diner. "Might be room for franchising. If you know what I mean." He spoke conspiratorially. They both grinned, it was easy to agree that this dark and frankly, poor smelling place, lacked the charm of Fisher's café. And when their meals of 'squirrel on a stick' literally arrived as a squirrel, roasted on a stick, Anya had to agree, that this place was a dump.

"So I heard you got yourself a nephew." Gabe mentioned as he was picking through the remainder of the bones on his plate. Fisher's face split into a grin then, looking quite excited.

"Yes I do, as a matter of fact Lucas is letting me take him out for some shooting this afternoon."

"Well that should be fun." Gabe grinned as he tried not to think about what was crunching between his teeth. Anya found herself smiling too, it was nice to see a family being brought together in the wastes, instead of being torn apart.


	14. Chapter 14

Anya was doing her best to keep herself busy. It seemed, if nothing else, to help with the shakes. And the urges. The junk was out of her system, and with it, the addiction. She knew that.

But there was physical addiction, and then there was living almost a decade of your life with the chems in your system. Growing accustomed to them, expecting them. _Needing_ them.

She had thought about tracking down the man who holed up in the same building that housed the water filters. She didn't even know his name, but people talked. They said he was a junkie too, she had even passed him once or twice. He seemed harmless, just as normal as the rest of the folk in town. But there was a hollow edge to his eyes, a distance that he couldn't disguise. It was all the proof she needed to know that he was either using, or thinking about the next hit.

But she didn't seek him out. Not yet anyway, though it was a struggle some nights, when she was awake much later than she should be.

Instead, she occupied herself with little tasks. Helped around the house where Lucas was letting them stay. And she constantly reminded herself about the people who had helped her. Gabriel, Fisher. They were her friends. If she slid back into the jet, even once, she'd be letting them down. She owed them so much already she couldn't bear the thought of being such a disappointment.

Gabriel knew, or at least suspected she was struggling. He was always keeping an eye on her, asking her how she was getting on. He was about to drive her crazy with his mothering when one afternoon he showed up with a small tool kit. Nothing fancy, and it had a heavy layer of grime on it, but it felt familiar in her hands. A reminder of the person she used to be. It was like the first set Phil had given her back home.

_Home_. The concept was a foreign one now. That home had burned, and there was no one left behind to make it a home again. She wasn't sure she would ever have a home again. A home was just something that could be taken from you.

Still, the tools had given her that sense of familiarity, and something to do with her spare time. She found an old jukebox in Lucas' home, it hummed with power when the switch was plugged in, but nothing actually worked. When she offered to take a look at it, the Sheriff had laughed at her.

"Go ahead, can't break that hunk of garbage any worse than it already is."

Of course, he was surprised when he came home that afternoon and she _had_ broken it down into its individual pieces. It was all scattered in a corner of the room, and she had promised him she was going to piece it all back together again. Even Gabriel looked like he had his doubts about that happening.

It had taken her a full week to piece it back together again. She had seen one, before. A working unit, lit up and glittering. It had been so long ago, maybe she had imagined it, maybe it had only been a picture. But she felt confident she could make it work again, if for no other reason than she needed a reason to keep working. The most of it was getting it clean again, it looked like it had sat out in the wastes and the elements for years. Gabriel helped by finding new bulbs to replace the broken ones inside. The innards of the machine were largely okay, and what couldn't be salvaged, was just rewired. In her search for more wires, Gabe had brought her a junked radio. And that was when she had decided to make the radio part of it. There had only been two records still in the jukebox, and she wasn't entirely sure that they would still play in the condition they were in. It was hard work, and complicated, but she didn't mind. The more she worked, the easier it came back to her, and the less she thought about needing jet.

Harden, Lucas' son, had been eager to help once he had gotten over his initial shyness with the new strangers. As it came closer to getting finished, he spent more and more time watching Anya, eager to retrieve tools as she needed them. When it was finally complete, she let him push the power button, and it whirred to life. The lights flashed in multiple colors and the plastic disc was dropped onto the table inside where it spun and produced a warbling tune. The wide grin on his face had been as equally rewarding as her own feeling of accomplishment. They spent the rest of the afternoon learning how to work the buttons to select new songs, and how to get the radio to play.

Gabriel and Fisher rolled in that evening, just as the sun was beginning to set, and found Anya and Harden dancing up a storm in celebration. Lucas had brought home several bottles of wine inexplicably, but when he saw cause for celebration, he produced several Brahmin steaks and they made a feast of it.

"How bout I take you down to Craterside Supply tomorrow?" They were all sitting around the table, enjoying the delicious meat. The Sheriff was overindulging in the wine he had brought home, his mood somewhat subdued when compared with the rest of them. Harden jumped up every few songs, just to change the selection. It rotated on its own, but Harden seemed to enjoy showing that he knew how to switch it, so they let him be. "Things are still a little wild in town tonight after the dust up, but I reckon Moira would be real pleased to meet you. She owns that supply shop. I bet she'd pay good caps to have you fix up her radios."

"Really?" Anya grinned. "That'd be great." It hadn't occurred to her that her old skills might come in handy in the real world. It would at least be an opportunity to try and pay Gabriel and Fisher back for all they had done. Something she was still eager to do, despite Gabriel trying to reassure her they were square.

"Dust up?" Fisher asked around a mouthful of steak. Lucas looked over his shoulder to see that Harden was still busy at the jukebox before answering.

"Yeah, out of town fellah. Came in more than a week ago. Classy looking guy, plenty of caps. Pays his bills, kept an open tab at Moriarty's. Figured he was harmless. Stupid rich, but harmless." He took another swig if the red wine, his eyes starting to go glassy. "Never misjudged someone so bad in my life. He's been trying to pay folk off to detonate that bomb in town. Lord knows _why_." He shook his head, tracing the rim of his cup with his finger.

"Could someone do that?" Gabriel's face had turned dark.

"Only if you're some kind of tech genius." Lucas shrugged, and then gave Anya a quick glance. "Anyway, some wastelander tipped me off. I went charging into the bar, chest all puffed out. Acting like he'd just have a listen and then I'd run him out of town. Well, he had other plans. Pulled a gun on me before I could even spit." He let out a shaky breath and the table had gotten very quiet.

"Jesus," Fisher let out a low whistle. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Lucas snorted bitterly, refilling his glass. "Lucky that wastelander was around. Hardly more than a boy really, but I'm not too proud to admit that youngster saved my skin. And probably a bunch of other folk."

"I'm glad you're okay." Anya said after the silence had dragged on. Town was somewhere you could forget how dangerous the wastes were, but there were always vicious reminders that everything you had could be taken away. Harden returned to the table, a grin plastered on his face as another song erupted from the jukebox.

"Me too." Lucas said with a chuckle, ruffling his son's hair. "Anyway, I'll bring you around in the morning. Moira's a sweet girl, I bet you two will get along just fine."

"That sounds great." Anya smiled again, trying to forget the shooting. Lucas watched Harden for a moment, maybe realizing just how close he had been to not coming home at all.


End file.
